Amazon is seeking to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging it misled Prime Video subscribers about charging them an extra fee in order to avoid watching ads on the service, arguing that plaintiffs “got exactly what they bargained for.”
In January, the platform introduced an ad-supported tier with limited advertisements and switched all of its users to the plan by default, with the option to avoid ads by paying a $2.99 per month fee. Shortly after, a lawsuit was filed in California that accused the company of committing breach of contract and violating consumer protection laws in the state for consumers who saw their subscription terms change due to the pivot.
But the tech giant argues that the service has long included limited ads during live sporting events and other content and that it “never promised — to Prime members or anyone else — that Prime Video would be always, or entirely, ad-free.” It added that the class-action suit falsely and fundamentally mischaracterizes the $2.99 fee as a price increase for Prime memberships.
“Even though Amazon has the right to increase the Prime membership fee, Plaintiffs and other Prime members paid exactly the same fee for Prime before and after the change to Prime Video. Access to Prime Video is just one of the many Prime benefits that Amazon may change in its discretion,” the company wrote in its motion to dismiss filed on Friday. “But Plaintiffs still have complete access to Prime Video, and all of its content, and pay nothing extra for it. In other words, even though Amazon could permissibly change, or remove entirely, any Prime benefit, it did not do so with Prime Video.”
Amazon said that the plaintiffs’ relationship is governed by the Prime membership’s terms and conditions, which they agreed to, rather than Prime Video, and that under those terms, it’s “free to change or eliminate that feature, at its discretion, at any time.”
“To hold otherwise would deprive Amazon of the benefit of its bargain,” the company added.
Amazon also noted that, despite being given a month’s notice, five of the plaintiffs never chose to cancel and two voluntarily chose to pay the $2.99 per month fee to avoid the “’annoy[ance]’ of ads.”
“If Plaintiffs truly believed that the separate, optional payment of $2.99 per month undercuts all of the substantial value of a Prime membership, they were free to cancel Prime. None of the Plaintiffs allege that they even tried to cancel, let alone that they sought a refund and were denied one,” Amazon continued. “The CCAC should be dismissed with prejudice.”
Currently, Amazon Prime — which includes Prime Video — costs $14.99 per month or $139 a year. A membership that only includes Prime Video and none of the company’s shipping benefits costs $8.99 per month.
The class action suit is seeking at least $5 million, as well as a court order barring Amazon from engaging in further deceptive conduct on behalf of users who subscribed to Prime prior to Dec. 28, 2023. Representatives for the plaintiffs did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
The legal action follows a separate suit from the Federal Trade Commission last year, which accused Amazon of making it difficult for consumers to unsubscribe to their Prime subscriptions by using a “manipulative” and “coercive” interface. Bloomberg reported last week that Amazon has received a partial dismissal of the FTC suit, with a bench trial slated for October 2026.
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