Australia's competition regulator takes Amazon to court over alleged unfair Prime subscription contract terms

The logo and lettering of online retailer Amazon can be seen on the façade of Amazon Germany's headquarters. Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images Australia's competition regulator is taking Amazon 's Australian unit to court, alleging that unfair terms in its Prime subscription contracts allowed the company ​to introduce advertising to its video streaming platform. The Australian Competition ​and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in a statement on Tuesday that Amazon Australia allegedly used unfair terms between November 2023 and August ⁠2025 to make changes to Prime Video contracts. The contracts, said the ACCC, required more than a million annual Prime subscribers in the country to accept advertising or pay an additional AU$2.99 ($2.05) per month for an ad-free option when Amazon introduced ads into Prime Video service in July 2024, with no entitlement to a refund if they chose to cancel their subscription. "We allege that ​Amazon AU included multiple unfair terms in its contracts with Australian annual Prime subscribers, and it then relied on some of these terms to bring ads onto Amazon ​Prime Video," said the regulator's chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb. The ACCC is seeking consumer redress, penalties, costs, declarations and other orders. The Amazon local unit's contracts were investigated by the regulator after it received reports from consumers following the company's introduction of ads to Prime Video in July 2024, the ACCC said in a statement. …