The ACCC has filed Federal Court proceedings against Amazon over Prime Video ads, alleging unfair contract terms forced more than a million paid-up annual subscribers to accept ads or pay more. The case is about how a change was communicated, not the change itself.
The problem was never the ads. It was telling people they had paid for ad-free and then changing the deal.
The ACCC has taken Amazon to the Federal Court over the way it rolled out ads on Prime Video. The regulator alleges Amazon used unfair contract terms to push advertising onto annual Prime members who had already paid for an ad-free service. More than a million subscribers who paid A$79 for the year were given a choice, accept ads or pay an extra A$2.99 a month to remove them.
According to the ACCC, more than 850,000 subscribers were shifted onto an ad-supported service on 2 July 2024, with no contractual right to a refund for the time left on their prepaid year. The proceedings were filed on 29 June. The claim is not that Amazon added ads. It is that the terms allowing it were buried, and customers who had paid for one thing were quietly given another.
Why it matters
Every Australian business running a subscription should read this as a warning about communication, not just contracts. Amazon is one of the most sophisticated companies on earth and it is in the Federal Court over how a change to a paid plan was framed. Subscription traps are already under a legislative squeeze in Australia. The lesson is that how you tell customers about a change to what they paid for is now a legal and reputational risk, not just a customer service one.
What annual Prime members had paid for an ad-free service before the ACCC says ads were pushed on them
What to do about it
The ads were legal. The way they arrived is what landed Amazon in court, and that distinction should shape how every subscription business handles its next change.