Background: Amazon is the global tech giant best known as the world's largest online shopping platform. Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, the company has since expanded from an online bookstore into cloud computing, music and streaming through Amazon Prime Video. In Australia, Amazon Prime has around 5 million subscribers, making it one of the country's most-used streaming platforms... second only to Netflix.  

What happened: Between November 2023 and August 2025, Amazon introduced ads to Prime Video... and then charged around 1 million Australian subscribers an extra $2.99 per month if they wanted to go ad-free. Now, the ACCC is suing Amazon, claiming that the company used unfair contract terms to impose additional charges on existing customers midway through their subscriptions.    

What else: Customers who had already paid $79 upfront for their Prime membership were "left with no choice but to pay more".  And while Amazon's terms and conditions reportedly allowed it to change services without offering refunds, the key legal question now is whether those contract terms are actually enforceable in court.  

What's the key learning?

💡 Businesses can write a contract, but they don't write the rules. Consumer protection laws still override terms that unfairly disadvantage customers.

💡 Rules around Unfair Contract Terms (UCT) in Australia were tightened in 2023. This means the ACCC has had stronger powers to challenge contract terms that create major power imbalances, especially when customers have little ability to negotiate or opt out.

💡 Big companies have faced backlash for UCT since the changes. For example, PayPal Australia was taken to court over a clause which let it to keep wrongly charged fees unless customers spotted the error within 60 days. In the end the court ruled that to be unfair. So, companies like Amazon could face similar scrutiny.