United States of America

Anthropic Must Face Suit Over Claude Max '20x' Advertising

Did Anthropic mislead users or did consumers simply ignore the fine print?

2 hours ago·Updated 51 minutes ago

Anthropic Must Face Suit Over Claude Max '20x' Advertising

Story

Above: A photo illustration of Anthropic's Claude AI website displayed on a smartphone. Image credit: Idrees Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images

The Facts

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that the AI firm Anthropic must face claims that it misled buyers by advertising Claude Max as offering "5x or 20x more usage" than Claude Pro, letting deceptive advertising, negligent misrepresentation and contract claims proceed.
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Reuters
The lawsuit, initially filed in June by Karl Kahn, alleged that Anthropic's $100-per-month Max 5x subscription provided only 3.5 times the usage of its Pro plan, while the $200 Max 20x plan offered between six and eight times Pro's usage.
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Although Anthropic's website stated that the multipliers were applied on a per-session basis, Kahn, later joined by Solomon Smith, argued that this qualification was not sufficiently prominent or clearly communicated to consumers, and that the term "session" itself was inadequately explained.
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TNW
In response, Anthropic filed a motion to dismiss in September, arguing that its support pages adequately explained that Max plans provide five or 20 times more usage "per session" than Pro, and that its terms reserve its right to increase or decrease capacity limits at any time.
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On Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex Tse, however, disagreed with Anthropic's assertion, concluding that the firm's per-session disclosure sits "two hyperlinks away from the primary sales pages on claude.com," "outside the sales funnel," and that monthly subscribers could reasonably read the promise as applying each month.
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Nevertheless, Tse dismissed Kahn's claims under California's unfair competition and false advertising laws, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to seek an injunction and failed to explain why monetary damages would be inadequate. He gave them leave to amend their suit.
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Sources Split

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The Spin

Prosecution narrative

Thanks to poor advertising and unclear guidance, Anthropic misled users into buying Claude Max plans, thinking the purchase would increase their number of sessions, while burying the math behind the multipliers out of sight. This is an unacceptable breach of consumer trust. After all, advertising should match what it claims.

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Defense narrative

Anthropic clearly outlined in its fine print exactly what it meant when it advertised Claude Max's multiplier, spelling out that this applied per session and that weekly caps are separate. The company should not be penalized because consumers misunderstood this qualification, especially since it appears in the sign-up process.

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