On Monday, June 17, the United States government sued Adobe, maker of Photoshop and Acrobat, accusing the company of harming consumers by hiding high fees for terminating subscriptions in the most popular tariff plan and making it difficult to cancel subscriptions.

In a complaint filed in federal court in San Jose, California, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that the mentioned firm buries fees, which sometimes amount to several hundred dollars. The regulator also accused the company of involvement in a practice that involves withholding information about several important conditions in the Annual Paid Monthly subscription plan in the fine print, or behind textboxes and hyperlinks.

The complaint also notes that Adobe calculates the early termination feeы as 50% of the remaining payments during the first year of use.

The defendants in this case are two Adobe executives, including David Wadhwani, president of digital media business, and Maninder Sawhney, senior vice president of digital sales.

Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, says that the company has trapped customers into a one-year subscription with hidden fees for early termination and numerous obstacles to canceling subscriptions. He also stated that residents of the United States are tired of the fact that firms do not disclose information about their intentions during subscription registration and generate obstacles to trying to cancel a subscription.

Dana Rao, Adobe’s general counsel and chief trust officer, said that the company intends to refute the FTC’s claims in court.

For the quarter ended March 1, subscriptions accounted for $4.92 billion, or 95% of the firm’s revenue for the mentioned period.

As we have reported earlier, Adobe Releases Acrobat AI Assistant.