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The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission filed proceedings in the Federal Court against Amazon Commercial Services Pty Ltd on Tuesday, alleging the company included five unfair terms in Prime subscription contracts signed between November 2023 and August 2025. Those terms permitted unilateral changes to the Prime Video service without providing subscribers any contractual right to refunds or other meaningful redress, according to the ACCC. The regulator’s concise statement of claim detailed how Amazon relied on the terms to add advertising to the platform in 2024, leaving prepaid customers with a degraded service unless they paid extra. Over 850,000 subscribers had already paid an annual upfront fee of A$79 before the ads began, ACCC figures show.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb stated that consumers who wanted to avoid ads were left with no choice but to pay more to maintain the service they had initially signed up for. The ACCC is seeking declarations that the terms are unfair, pecuniary penalties and orders for consumer redress under Australian Consumer Law, Reuters reported. The action targets contracts with more than one million annual subscribers in total during the two-year period. Amazon Australia introduced the ad-supported tier while increasing the monthly price for the ad-free option to A$12.99.
A spokeswoman for Amazon told the BBC that the company is reviewing the case filed by the ACCC in detail. She added that Amazon had cooperated with the ACCC throughout its investigation and remains focused on providing the best experience for its Australian customers. The changes followed more than a decade in which Prime Video had been offered without commercials as part of the broader Prime subscription, which became available in Australia in 2018, according to the regulator’s account. Advertising began rolling out on the service globally in early 2024.
Data from Telsyte published by the Australian Financial Review in October 2025 placed Amazon Prime Video’s Australian subscriber base at 5.1 million, up 6 percent from the previous year. A separate report from Expert Market Research valued the overall Australian streaming market at AUD 4.19 billion in 2025 and projected it to grow at an 18 percent compound annual growth rate to reach AUD 21.93 billion by 2035. The figures reflect rising consumer demand across subscription video services, with major platforms expanding their reach amid increasing household spending on entertainment.
Changes to Australian Consumer Law that took effect in November 2023 allow penalties for proposing, using or relying on unfair terms in standard form contracts, an ACCC assessment found. The maximum penalty for a company is the greater of A$50 million, three times the benefit obtained from the conduct or 30 percent of adjusted turnover during the breach period, according to ACCC guidelines. The regulator has identified unfair contract terms as a compliance and enforcement priority for the 2026-27 financial year. Individuals face a maximum penalty of A$2.5 million under the provisions.
The Australian case forms part of broader international scrutiny of Amazon’s subscription practices. The US Federal Trade Commission secured a settlement last year requiring Amazon to pay more than US$2.5 billion in penalties and refunds over claims it enrolled consumers in Prime without consent and made cancellation difficult, Reuters data shows. UK authorities have separately investigated the company’s product listing methods and the prevalence of fake reviews on its platform. Amazon has not admitted liability in the Australian proceedings while it reviews the ACCC filings.
