US Judge rules Anthropic advertising may be misleading
A US judge says Anthropic's advertising for Claude Max plans may be misleading
A US judge has ruled that Anthropic's advertising for its Claude Max plans may mislead customers. He has allowed some claims in a proposed class-action lawsuit to move forward.
US Magistrate Judge Alex Tse of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a ruling on 6 November 2026 in a proposed class-action lawsuit about how Anthropic advertises its Claude Max subscription plans.
The judge threw out several of the customers' claims but allowed the main claims to continue. These claims say that Anthropic may have given customers the wrong idea about its plans and broken its subscription agreements. In his decision, Judge Tse said that 'the advertising in question is plausibly misleading'.
The two people who brought the lawsuit, Karl Kahn and Solomon Smith, filed the case on behalf of Claude Max customers. They say Anthropic's website promises '5x more usage than Pro' for the Max 5x plan and '20x more usage than Pro' for the Max 20x plan. However, they argue that the weekly usage limits are not actually five or twenty times higher than the Pro plan. Their calculations suggest that Max 20x users get about six times as much weekly usage as Pro users, while Max 5x users get about 3.5 times as much. One customer mentioned in the complaint said they had already used 50% of their weekly allowance by the third day of the week.
Anthropic argued that 'more usage' means more usage during each session. It also pointed to information on its help page that explains the limits for each session. Judge Tse did not accept this explanation. He pointed out that customers must follow 'two hyperlinks away from the primary sales pages on claude.com' to find this information. He said customers could reasonably understand the promise to mean five or twenty times more usage each month. The sales page has a small note saying 'Usage limits apply', but it does not explain that there are limits for each session.
The court rejected the customers' claims under three California laws: the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, the state's law against unfair business practices, and its law against false advertising. The judge also agreed with Anthropic that people who use goods or services for business purposes do not count as consumers under California law. Smith's claim was allowed to continue because he uses Claude for education. Judge Tse decided that educational use is not the same as business use. Kahn's claim was rejected because he had not provided enough details, but the judge gave him a chance to provide more information.
The judge also rejected a claim that Anthropic used a bait-and-switch by changing usage limits during billing periods. He decided that the company's terms allow it to make these changes. He also noted that Max subscribers still get more weekly usage than Pro subscribers and can still use Claude Code. For these reasons, he ruled that 'Anthropic didn't tighten usage limits as a bait-and-switch'.
It is worth noting that Anthropic updated its platform one week before the ruling. It changed the names of the Claude Max subscription plans and removed the '5x' and '20x' wording.
Why does it matter?
The customers' claims raise important questions about protecting consumers and making advertising clear in AI services. The case focuses on whether Anthropic may have used misleading or dishonest advertising when selling its subscription plans. Such practices can break California's consumer protection laws. However, California law has a narrow definition of a consumer. It only protects people who buy goods or services for personal, family or household use.
Anthropic asked the court to dismiss the claims. The judge agreed to dismiss some claims but allowed others to continue. Some claims were rejected because the people who brought them did not have the legal right to make them or did not meet the law's definition of a consumer. However, the claims involving educational use were allowed to move forward. The judge decided that the allegations of misleading advertising were strong enough for the case to continue.