Australian authorities have filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the company of imposing unfair contracts on more than one million service subscribers by forcing them to pay extra to avoid advertisements that were not originally present in the service.
Foreign news agencies reported on 30 Jun 2026 that Australia's consumer watchdog has sued Amazon, claiming the technology giant inserted ads into its Prime Video service using contract terms alleged to be unfair.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated that Amazon violated consumer protection laws by enforcing unfair contracts on more than one million annual subscribers between November 2023 and August 2025.
"Consumers wanting to avoid ads had no choice but to pay extra to maintain the service in the original ad-free form they had initially subscribed to," ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
For over a decade, Prime Video has been an ad-free streaming service included in Amazon Prime memberships, which are sold as an upgraded version of the company's core shipping service.
Prime launched in Australia in 2018, but Amazon began introducing ads globally on this service in 2024 and notified Australian subscribers that to continue enjoying an ad-free experience, they would have to pay an additional monthly fee, raising the price to AUD 12.99 per month.
At that point, the ACCC noted that more than 850,000 Australians had already prepaid for annual Prime subscriptions.
"Those subscribers received a downgraded Prime Video service with ads throughout the remainder of their prepaid contract period unless they agreed to pay extra for the ad-free option," the ACCC added in its filing.
The ACCC stated that Amazon engaged in this behavior by relying on five unfair contract terms within agreements signed by over one million customers between 1 November 2023 and 18 August 2025.
"These contracts included five clauses allowing [Amazon Australia] to unilaterally change its services in ways that caused significant detriment—including but not limited to Prime Video—and terms controlling those services, while subscribers had no contractual right to refunds or adequate compensation," the ACCC said.
This is not the first time Amazon's treatment of users has been scrutinized by government agencies.
In recent years, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken legal action against Amazon over allegations that the company enrolled consumers into Prime without consent and deliberately complicated the cancellation process.
Last Tuesday, Amazon agreed to pay a fine to the FTC to resolve accusations that it created a "complex and psychologically taxing process reminiscent of Kafka's fiction" for victims of online shopping fraud.
Previously, the UK government investigated Amazon's product ranking methods for advertising placement and the widespread issue of fake product reviews on the platform.
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Source:bbc