Amazon is in trouble with the ACCC for springing ads on Prime Video users

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The ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) has taken Amazon to court for forcing ads on Prime Video customers who were subscribed to annual plans and asking customers to pay more (an extra $2.99) every month to remove said ads.  

The ACCC has accused Amazon of “including unfair contract terms in its Prime subscriptions contracts, and later relying on those terms to introduce advertising to its streaming service, Amazon Prime Video.” The ACCC’s argument is that between November 2023 and August 2025, Amazon Australia’s customer contracts contained several terms that allowed the online shopping giant to “unilaterally make negative changes during the contract period without offering subscribers a remedy.” The ACCC is seeking penalties, legal costs and "consumer redress" (refunds or compensation for customers) in its case against Amazon. 

In other words, by introducing ad breaks that could be removed for an additional ongoing fee, annual Amazon Prime Video subscribers were effectively getting a product of lower quality than the one they had already paid for. A smaller but still unfair change to the standard Prime Video plan was the removal of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, advanced image and audio features for users with compatible devices. 

In June 2025, Amazon did make an effort to right its wrongs – a pro-rated refund backdated to 2 July 2024 or 12 months of Amazon Prime for free – but only in response to customers who cancelled their annual subscriptions as a result of the changes. In August 2025, Amazon updated its terms to guarantee a pro-rated refund to impacted customers but only long after the ACCC began investigating complaints in 2024. 

So, what's the big deal? Netflix introduced ads and eventually removed its next cheapest option, forcing customers into an ad-supported tier. While that's obviously anti-consumer behaviour, the key difference is that Netflix doesn't offer annual plans. Every customer is on a month-to-month agreement, one that Netflix is within its rights to update the terms to as often as it likes, as long as customers aren't impacted within a single monthly billing cycle. Where Amazon slipped up was by assuming it could make negative changes to a product that customers had already paid for upfront. 

So what's next for those customers impacted? Litigation and trial can last anywhere between 12 and 48 months, but if and when judgement is ruled in the ACCC's favour, a resolution will be decided upon, after which customers will likely be notified of compensation via email. 

Brodie Fogg

Managing Editor - Streaming

Brodie Fogg is WhistleOut Australia's Managing Editor for Streaming. He's been writing about tech, streaming, games and telco since 2015. He previously managed a team of entertainment editors at Finder, and has also appeared on 7NEWS.

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