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Article: Adobe settles DOJ cancellation fee lawsuit, will pay $75 million penalty

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5 / 10

AI Summary (Processed Content)

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Adobe in 2024 for allegedly hiding substantial early termination fees within its Creative Cloud subscription plans. As part of a settlement, Adobe has agreed to pay a $75 million fine and provide matching free services to affected customers.

The company pioneered the shift to a subscription model for its creative software in 2013, moving away from expensive perpetual licenses. While monthly fees appeared lower upfront, long-term subscribers have paid thousands, and many faced significant hurdles and unexpected costs when attempting to cancel.

The government's case focused on Adobe's practice of obscuring its 50% cancellation fee in fine print and using complex customer service processes to deter cancellations.

Main topics: Adobe's subscription model and cancellation practices; the Department of Justice lawsuit and settlement; customer costs and challenges.

Original URL

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/adobe-settles-doj-cancellation-fee-lawsuit-will-pay-75-million-penalty/

Source Feed

Ars Technica

Published Date

2026-03-13 18:47

Fetched Date

2026-03-13 16:30

Processed Date

2026-03-13 16:31

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Present

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Not Clustered

Raw Extracted Content

Canceling a software subscription is supposed to be easy—that’s what US law dictates. Adobe, however, has played fast and loose with its Creative Cloud subscriptions in the past. The company was sued by the Department of Justice in 2024 due to its practice of hiding hefty termination fees when customers signed up. The case has now been settled, with Adobe agreeing to a $75 million fine and matching free services to users of its products.
Turning software into a monthly subscription is all the rage these days, but Adobe was way ahead of the curve. The company began offering its suite of editing tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator, as a monthly subscription back in 2013, and most of its customers migrated to the new system.
It was easy for Adobe to get away with that shift because CS6, the last perpetual license offered for its editing tools, started at $700 and went up to more than $2,600 for all apps. By contrast, paying between $10 and $70 per month seems like a good deal, and it might be in the short term. Although anyone who has been paying monthly since the change has spent thousands of dollars on Adobe software. And when people noticed that and decided they wanted to cancel, many of them were frustrated with the outcome.
Core to the government’s complaint was Adobe’s practice of hiding cancellation fees for its subscriptions in the fine print or behind hyperlinks. Adobe charges 50 percent of the remaining subscription term when you cancel, which can be hundreds of dollars on annual plans. In addition, the company used labyrinthine phone trees to make canceling more difficult.