Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has launched legal action against Amazon,saying company used unfair contract terms with Prime Video subscribers. The lawsuit claims Amazon violated consumer protection laws, impacting over a million annual subscribers from November 2023 to August 2025.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb says consumers had no option but to pay more to avoid new ads in Prime Video. “Consumers who wanted to avoid ads were left with no choice but to pay more to maintain the service they'd initially signed up for,” she said.
For over ten years, Prime Video was marketed as ad-free, part of Amazon Prime subscription which also includes delivery perks. Service started in Australia in 2018,but ads rolled out globally in early 2024. When Amazon made this change,it told Australian subscribers they would face extra monthly charge of 12.99 Australian dollars to keep an ad-free experience.
At that point, over 850,000 Australians had prepaid for a year of Prime. ACCC noted these subscribers got stuck with ad-supported Prime Video unless they paid for ad-free option.
ACCC's filing pointed to five unfair terms in contracts signed by customers between November 1, 2023,and August 18, 2025. These terms let Amazon Australia make big changes to its services,including Prime Video,without giving subscribers any right to refunds or real recourse.
This isn't first time Amazon's practices have been questioned. In U.S.,Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also acted against company,alleging it enrolled customers in Prime without consent and made it hard to cancel. Amazon recently agreed to pay FTC fine to settle claims it created a "Kafkaesque ordeal" for online shopping fraud victims.
In UK,Amazon has faced probes on its product listing methods and fake reviews. ACCC's lawsuit adds to growing list of regulatory headaches for tech giant as it deals with consumer protection issues across many regions…
