Australia’s competition and consumer watchdog has taken Amazon to court, alleging that the company used unfair contract terms after introducing ads on Prime Video and requiring users to pay an extra fee to avoid them.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Amazon breached consumer protection law through unfair contracts involving more than one million annual subscribers in the period from November 2023 to August 2025.
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ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said consumers who wanted to continue using Prime Video without ads had no choice but to pay more to keep the same service they had originally subscribed to.
The lawsuit states that for more than a decade, Prime Video had been offered as an ad-free service within the Prime subscription. But at the start of 2024, Amazon began running ads on the platform in Australia as well, while asking subscribers for an additional monthly payment for the ad-free version, bringing the subscription price to 12.99 Australian dollars per month.
The ACCC underlines that during that period, more than 850,000 Australians had paid for an annual Prime subscription in advance and, according to the agency, they were given a modified service with ads for the remainder of their subscription unless they agreed to pay the extra fee.
According to the claims in the lawsuit, Amazon also relied on five contract terms that allowed it to unilaterally change services and terms of use, without granting subscribers the right to a refund or other forms of compensation.
So far, Amazon has made no public comment regarding the lawsuit.
