Anthropic faces a lawsuit due to subscription marketing involving Claude

A federal judge in California, Alex Tse, ruled that the subscription marketing lawsuit against Anthropic's Claude Max can proceed. The judge allowed claims under California's consumer law for deceptive advertising, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of contract to continue, while dismissing other claims, including those related to the state's unfair competition law, and permitted the plaintiffs to submit an amended complaint.

The proposed class action was filed in September by two Claude Max subscribers. The plaintiffs claim that the Max plans, priced at $100 and $200 per month, were advertised as providing 5 times or 20 times the usage of the Pro plan, but the weekly usage limits did not reach those multiples. Anthropic stated that the relevant multiples refer to the usage per 5-hour session and cited information disclosed on the website. Tse found that these disclosures were too far removed from the main sales page to warrant dismissal of the case at this stage.