The ACCC alleges Amazon buried unfair terms in Prime contracts, then used them to add ads to Prime Video for more than a million subscribers without offering refunds.
The complaint Australia’s consumer regulator filed against Amazon this week turns on a small print clause and a large grievance. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges that Amazon buried unfair terms in its Prime subscription contracts and then used those terms to quietly introduce advertising to Prime Video, leaving subscribers who had paid for an ad-free service with no way to get their money back.
The case was filed on 29 June in the Victorian District Registry of the Federal Court. At its centre is a sequence familiar to anyone who has watched the streaming industry pivot toward advertising.
Before July 2024, Prime Video in Australia was almost entirely ad-free. Then Amazon introduced ads, and told subscribers who wanted to keep watching without interruption that they would need to pay an additional A$2.99 a month for the privilege they had assumed they already had.
The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!The ACCC’s argument is not that Amazon added ads, which streaming services are free to do, but how it added them. The regulator alleges that between November 2023 and August 2025, Amazon Australia used unfair contract terms to impose negative changes on more than one million annual subscribers without offering compensation.
