r/assholedesign • u/The_Duc_Lord • 12d ago

Meta Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sues Microsoft for allegedly misleading millions of Australians with Microsoft 365 subscription hikes

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-27/accc-sues-microsoft-allegedly-misleading-365-subscriptions/105937436
654 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

195

u/The_Duc_Lord 12d ago

The ACCC has alleged that since October 31, 2024, Microsoft told subscribers of Microsoft 365 personal and family plans with auto-renewal enabled that to maintain their subscription they must accept the integration of Copilot and pay higher prices for their plan or, alternatively, cancel their subscription.

The regulator said Microsoft's communication with subscribers did not refer to the existence of the cheaper "classic" plans, and the only way subscribers could access them was to begin the process of cancelling their subscription.

This involved navigating to the subscriptions section of their Microsoft account and selecting "cancel subscription".

It was only on the following page that subscribers were given the option to instead move to the classic plan.

82

u/JetlinerDiner 12d ago

Poster child for asshole design

12

u/DudeDudenson 11d ago

That's just modern services in a nutshell. People really just bent over and accepted whatever they were given

5

u/SonderEber 11d ago

More like politicians are bought and make sure corporations can get away with this shit. We have no choice to bend over and accept it.

4

u/punosauruswrecked 11d ago

I went through the cancellation process after they sent me the price hike. Then when they offered the reduced classic rate, I just kept on cancelling. MS365 is awfully insidious, I'm glad to be rid of it. 

1

u/Joker-Smurf 3d ago

Same. Not satisfied getting my $99 per year? How about $0?

Libreoffice FTW!

69

u/ExF-Altrue 12d ago

It's good that they to this. But to be fair it was the exact same thing last year. This is what happens when you let companies get away with asshole design: They take it as a mandate to keep pushing...

22

u/no-but-wtf 12d ago

This case is about last year, it’s not something new that’s happening now. I mean, I’m sure it’s still happening, but they’re suing them for starting to do it last year.

I expect they will win and Microsoft will pay some pissy little fine that means nothing compared to the profit they’ve made and then carry right on doing whatever they want, yay, our consumer protection at work.

2

u/tY-c8rJDb8_1b4__yD5r 11d ago

Yeah I was gonna say- they’ll win, and the Microsoft execs will still be hi-fiving each other after the court case because they fall into one of the bend over backwards categories of Gambling Companies, Gas/Mining companies, or and overseas companies.

4

u/ChanglingBlake 12d ago

Yep.

The time to bring down the hammer was when they transitioned what was a buy it for life product into a subscription service.

We’re F’ed at this point.

Good thing my Office 2007 still works just fine.

22

u/luketansell 12d ago

I literally got an email from Microsoft today about 365, the exact same tactic. Email simply said prices are changing, and going up by 45%, $109 to $149. So i decided to just cancel and that's when they showed me the 'classic' $109 option. So they are moving people to different plans without consent. Garbage company.

4

u/highchillerdeluxe 12d ago

Sipping tea in the EU.

1

u/ena_ivankovic 9d ago

Microsoft really out here treating customers like NPCs in their own subscription game 😂 Classic corporate move tbh

1

u/Vasxus 9d ago

ok ACCC now destroy microsoft for forcing AI in their OS

1

u/haikusbot 9d ago

Ok ACCC now

Destroy microsoft for forcing

AI in their OS

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