Amazon is facing legal action in Australia after the country’s competition watchdog accused.
The company of unfairly introducing advertisements on Prime Video and requiring subscribers to pay an additional fee to continue watching content without ads.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging that Amazon relied on unfair contract terms to change the service offered to more than one million annual Prime subscribers between November 2023 and August 2025.
Why Amazon Is Being Sued
According to the ACCC, Amazon’s Prime membership contracts contained five allegedly unfair clauses that allowed the company to make unilateral changes to subscribers’ plans during the contract period without providing an adequate remedy.
The regulator claims Amazon invoked those terms in July 2024 to introduce advertisements on Prime Video, which had previously been almost entirely ad-free for paying subscribers.
The ACCC argues that customers had already paid an upfront annual subscription fee of 79 Australian dollars for an ad-free streaming experience, but were later asked to pay an additional monthly charge if they wanted to continue watching without advertisements.
“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,” the watchdog said in its statement.
Amazon Responds
Amazon said it is reviewing the proceedings and defended its engagement with regulators.
“We have cooperated with the ACCC throughout its investigation and remain focused on providing the best experience for our Australian customers,” the company said, according to the BBC.
Prime Video’s Shift to Ad-Supported Streaming
Prime Video operated as an ad-free streaming service for paid subscribers for more than a decade before Amazon began introducing advertisements in several markets in 2024.
In Australia, subscribers were informed that advertisements would be added to Prime Video unless they opted to pay an extra monthly fee for an ad-free experience, increasing the cost of the streaming service to 12.99 Australian dollars per month.
Amazon launched Prime Video in India in 2016 and also introduced advertisements for Indian users as part of its global rollout in 2024.
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