The consumer watchdog has launched legal proceedings against Amazon AU over a move it claimed has ripped off around a million Aussies.

The ACCC alleges that Amazon breached consumer law with unfair terms and conditions, something it claims forced Australian Prime Video subscribers to pay more after the streaming giant introduced ads.

“The ACCC has commenced Federal Court proceedings against Amazon Commercial Services Pty Ltd (Amazon AU) for allegedly breaching the Australian Consumer Law by 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 said in a statement.

“Between November 2023 and August 2025, Amazon AU’s Prime contracts with more than one million annual subscribers contained what the ACCC alleges were five unfair contract terms that allowed it to unilaterally make negative changes during the contract period without offering subscribers a remedy.”

The watchdog added that Amazon AU allegedly relied on the unfair terms to introduce ads into Prime Video.

“It is also alleged that Amazon AU later relied on one or more of these unfair terms when it introduced ads to Prime Video in Australia in July 2024. Prior to that, Amazon Prime Video was almost entirely ad-free,” a statement said.

“After July 2024, subscribers who wanted to maintain ad-free streaming had to pay an additional $2.99 per month. This was despite annual subscribers already having paid $79 upfront for the service.”

The significant move could open up a can of worms for streaming platforms, many of whom now offer ad free viewing for a price.

Amazon AU has not commented on allegations and ACCC move.

ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: “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.”

“Consumers who wanted to avoid ads were left with no choice but to pay more to maintain the service they’d initially signed up for.”