Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Adobe Settles With US Over Hard-to-Cancel Subscriptions
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 2 hours ago on
March 13, 2026

A marketing activation space for Adobe in Park City, Utah, Jan. 21, 2025. The maker of Photoshop agreed to pay $75 million to the government, which had accused it of hiding details of expensive fees. (Alex Goodlett/The New York Times)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday settled a lawsuit that accused Adobe of making it difficult for customers to cancel their subscriptions to Photoshop and other software, according to a filing in federal court.

Adobe agreed to pay $75 million to the Justice Department and provide customers with $75 million worth of free services.

The Justice Department sued in 2024, accusing the company of hiding expensive cancellation fees from consumers. Adobe’s website and customer service representatives made canceling challenging, the lawsuit claimed.

Adobe denied any wrongdoing. “In recent years, we have made our sign-up and cancellation processes even more streamlined and transparent,” it added in a statement Friday.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Federal Trade Commission, which referred the case to the department, declined to comment.

The settlement, which requires approval by the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit, is the latest pullback by the Trump administration on consumer protection lawsuits filed against companies under the Biden administration. The FTC settled a similar case against Amazon for up to $2.5 billion last year after arguing that the e-commerce giant made it hard for customers to terminate their Prime memberships.

On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it had tentatively settled a major lawsuit that accused Live Nation, the company that owns Ticketmaster, of being a monopoly.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By David McCabe/Alex Goodlett
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

Search

Keep the news you rely on coming. Support our work today.

Send this to a friend