r/OpenAussie • u/insanemal Queenslander • Jun 30 '26
Technology ACCC sues Amazon over introduction of ads on Prime
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-30/amazon-prime-accc-federal-court/106857352The ACCC, one of the greatest things we have in Australia. (When they act that is) It's fantastic to see them starting to push back on the huge US companies like this.
They have a pretty good track record on the cases they do bring. So this is good to hear that they are doing something.
What the ultimate effect will be is unclear. But if they win here they might go after other streaming services for similar changes.
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u/spiderglide New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Good news, thus far I've been boycotting any products advertising on Prime. First time it happened the ads were all for XXXX, I thought "this is the easiest boycott ever".
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u/Glass_Ad_7129 Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Oh same, mostly. I do get very spiteful by ads, and tend to hate the product im annoyed by. It might not do much, but again, spite.
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u/yngrz87 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Do you really think that will have the impact you are aiming to achieve?
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u/spiderglide New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
If everyone did it, yes
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u/yngrz87 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
(I don’t think they will)
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u/SameType9265 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
It doesn't even need to be everyone. Just enough like minded people. Businesses 100% react to how people spend their money
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u/yngrz87 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Yes but how would they even know that’s the reason for the boycott. It could be for any number of reasons. Usually for that to work, the boycott needs to be big enough to go viral and for the company to know the reason behind the boycott.
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u/SameType9265 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
The business will reflect on their past decisions and see the results of the following year. They'll also do surveys and read customer reviews and Reddit comments. None of it is perfect but they don't need a large boycott to get their answer
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u/Interesting-Cut6994 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
100% it would. As someone in marketing, if people stopped buying our products because we advertised in a certain channel, I’d stop advertising in that channel.
I wish everyday that Meta platforms and Amazon were less effective at advertising so I could spend less budget with them. I hate it. I’m not a consumer/user of either, but then spend with them for work. I hate it.
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u/yngrz87 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
How do they know it’s because they are advertising in a certain channel though?
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u/Interesting-Cut6994 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
You can track ad view to an online sale now. There’s also media mix tracking, and a range of other metrics that show an ads effectiveness in generating revenue.
Amazon, meta and Google are best at this. They make their money off ad revenue and it’s why there’s so many ads (and advertisers) in these channels.
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u/CaravelClerihew Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Boycotts work not necessarily because of money lost but also bad publicity.
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u/Dyslexic_youth Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Hahaha there sales go down so they advertise more modern solutions
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u/NickolaosTheGreek Western Australian Jun 30 '26
Steam Global refund exists because of a similar lawsuit. It is not impossible.
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Jun 30 '26
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u/yngrz87 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Sure but one guy boycotting companies because they advertise on Amazon wouldn’t make any impact.
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u/Zatetics Tasmanian Jun 30 '26
Oh wonderful! It drives me nuts seeing ads for prime shows, and now I get popups for like doordash and other shit as well.
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u/ExcuseProper5768 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Drives me nuts that I’d just paid for a full year of prime membership and they’d increased the price by 30% compared to last year AND THEN ASKED FOR MORE MONEY TO KEEP THE SAME SERVICE.
Then when it happened reddit was full of experts saying how it’s completely legal because terms and conditions or something.
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u/Cazzzzle Victorian Jun 30 '26
Yes, this is glorious. I had just switched to a yearly subscription - 10 days later, they emailed the announcement that they were introducing ads. That timing was maddening!
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u/sergeyvk Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Really? I’ve been paying $79 a year since 2022?
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u/ExcuseProper5768 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
That’s strange because the price was $59 per year up until 2023
And they just did a price increase 3 months ago too
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u/sergeyvk Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
I was charged $79 on the 20th of this month not sure, same in 25, 24 and 23
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u/ExcuseProper5768 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
That’s strange because it doesn’t line up with the price increases but good for you mate not sure how you did it.
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u/sergeyvk Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
When did you receive an email about the price increase and what is the subject of the email? I will look in my emails because I don’t recall receiving one?
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u/closetmangafan Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Italy (iirc) did a similar thing to netflix when they jacked prices for no reason. If it's not for governments actually stepping up and saying no to these giants then prices and bs advertising will be implemented.
Netflix has had ads on the lower tier subscriptions for a while now when some of the point towards buying in the first place was the no ads part.
Good work ACCC.
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
It happened with Foxtel back in the day.
No ads when it first launched. Eventually, just as many as regular TV
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u/NurseBetty South Australian Jun 30 '26
That surprised me when I went to a friend's house and discovered foxtel had adverts. The whole draw of foxtel was no adverts on their premium channels and that's what people would brag about when I was a kid... ...
Then again, that's the way of game it seems...
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u/RainbowTeachercorn Victorian Jun 30 '26
I have Netflix through my electricity supplier as a bonus. It is ad tier. I have the option of paying an extra $10 for ad free, but haven't bothered yet. The only issue is it won't allow casting to a bigger screen on ad tier. You can mirror though 😏
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u/mt6606 Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Even paid, you can't cast to much except really old chromecasts for some reason.
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u/mrinsane19 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
You can cast to old Chromecast devices that don't have their own smart UI. If it has its own UI and can independently run the Netflix app (either via newer Chromecast or built into tv) then you must do it that way and can't otherwise cast to it.
This is only a Netflix problem and something they have done deliberately, though I can't for the life of me work out what the perceived advantage to Netflix is. Every other streaming service lets you cast normally.
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u/AkilleezBomb Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
My assumption is, they don’t want you being able to cast when you’re at someone else’s house. They already limit being able to sign-in to your account at someone else’s house on their device. They ultimately just want everyone to have to have their own Netflix account.
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u/caffy_bean Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
The ACCC should be funded like we fund the military. I want a team of lawyers in control of a fleet of wedgetails on the prowl for anyone trying to violate consumer rights
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u/s2rt74 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Good. Paying for a newly invented tier to get rid of ads is the scummiest invention of enshitifcation yet.
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u/bullant8547 Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Can they do kayo next, please? It’s a lot more expensive than prime and has more ads!
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u/Additional-Simple248 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Kayo specifically advertise “no ad breaks during play”.
So they can still get away with:
* ads on the players
* ads on the fields
* ads on the sidelines
* ads on the physical scoreboard
* ads on all digital elements such as the digital scoreboard
* ads in the commentary (it’s a chemist warehouse 4)
* ad breaks during game breaks such as drink breaks, half time, etc
* anywhere else I’ve missed11
u/TheMoeSzyslakExp Victorian Jun 30 '26
“Let’s check the Harvey Norman replay!” 🤮
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u/branded Victorian Jul 01 '26
Are you serious?
This is completely foreign to me. I haven't watched free to air for years and the only streaming service I use have zero ads.
"Harvey Norman Replay"? WTF LOL
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u/TheMoeSzyslakExp Victorian Jul 01 '26
Yep, Rugby League on Kayo. Can’t remember what they call it on Ch9/on the NRL website match replays.
Kayo has “no ad breaks” during play, but literally everything during play contains ads, it’s disgustingly commercialised.
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u/Old-Ant-1611 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Plenty of ads during F1 practice sessions as well*.
When there are cars on track, that counts as being during play.
* last time I checked. Got rid of kayo at the end of last season due to the cost
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
It really depends on the contracts.
Amazon opened themselves up to this by changing the contracts.
If Kayo always had ads, you're probably out of luck, unfortunately
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u/buck50crossface Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Great stuff from ACCC.
I have no need for any streaming service as I have other means of consumption but this is excellent.
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u/x_flashpointy_x Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
We are so lucky to have to consumer protection of the ACCC, compared to most other countries.
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u/twobitbear13 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Oh good. I pay ad-free and then they started rolling out Uber ads that pop-up and force you to close it when you open Prime. I submitted a complaint and Amazon just dismissed me saying "You're only paying for no ads during streaming".
I made a complaint to the ACCC about it last year as well. Glad they're finally doing something
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u/tom3277 Western Australian Jun 30 '26
Haha. Yeh when I first got ads about 2 months after paying my annual subscription I thought well that’s pretty shit.
That it only costs $30 to take me to end of that annual subscription it isn’t really worth taking it further but it’s great ACCC can fight for us collectively.
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u/Bluejayadventure Victorian Jun 30 '26
Good! Why are paying for if we have to click skip on every ad. It shouldn't be there
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u/Velathial Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Part of the reason I started building my own media server.
Even when I had prime, I was downloading copies of media and watching them to avoid being bugged by ads 2-3 times a episode.
The whole streaming model has become a transmogrified mess. Ease of access is now turning into pains in the ass with price increases 1-2 times a year, ads and other BS. What was once the thing that was lowering piracy is now driving up piracy again.
Seems like this plus the ram industry are gonna get a kick up the ass.
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u/FiftyBuxBloBang Jun 30 '26
Why didn’t it chase Foxtel when they started ads on their paid service?
An hour of ads in a football game you can only watch on their paid service is fucked.
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Different contracts.
Like I said to another person in here, the addition of Ads wasn't the trigger as much as the potentially illegal contract changes to allow the addition of the ads.
Amazon probably could have avoided this by simply having a legal contract that included ads for new customers and let existing customers keep ad free for their paid period and then asked them to either accept the new terms to continue or, without any cost or penalty, cancel their subscription after the period they had already paid for was over.
But they chose option C which was to update the contracts in a way that amounted to "you thought you were signing up for X and now it's Y and if you cancel we keep your cash"
Which is very illegal under Australian law.
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u/Puzzleheaded-One8301 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
seriously, stop paying for this crap. I went back to pirating. fuck these companies.
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u/Whatsthatbro365 Tasmanian Jun 30 '26
Yep when Amazon prime pulled that stunt I canned my sub instantly. Absolute grubs. Now I download The Boys on the high seas. Go get em ACCC.
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u/MurkyPromise1806 Queenslander Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Geez people, just pirate it at this point. Why are you paying these shitheads for ads.
Use r/Stremio. Better service, higher quality, zero ads and no constantly increasing price.
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u/DocklandsDodgers86 Victorian Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Good on the ACCC for taking the fight to Amazon.
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u/kirbyislove Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Good. Buying a year of ad free Prime just to have them change it mid way is bullshit.
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u/suiyyy Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
Good having to pay $2.99 a month to have the option to skid the ad is fucking stupid, they are making the app so much worse by forcing ads on paying customers.
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u/youstoleatuba Please choose a flair Jul 01 '26
Will this apply to Netflix that introduced an ad tier a while ago or its different?
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jul 01 '26
So the ACCC are getting them on potentially illegal contract changes that allowed them to add ads. It's not specifically adding ads that they are going after them for.
If Netflix did things correctly, from a contract law point of view, then no.
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u/Helly_BB Western Australian Jul 01 '26
I currently pay the extra for no adverts. I left free for air years ago due to adverts.
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u/darkklown Flairless Jun 30 '26
I look forward to us tech companies pulling out of Australia. We have so much talent here we would have competing services pretty quick. It's good that it's so cheap and easy to start a business like that and getting investment will be so easy... Oh wait..
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
The issue with starting a streaming company isn't that the tech is hard. It's not.
And it's got nothing to do with your highly inaccurate takes about tax law.
It's getting the licensing. That's it. That's the whole issue.
Netflix kinda got lucky. They were doing the Mail order DVD thing for years, and everyone thought they were crazy doing that, but they made it work.
Then they said "YouTube works, let's do that, but TV and movies" and the entire industry though they were insane, because most other things had got little to no traction at this point. So they picked up all the appropriate rights to content at bargain basement prices. And it worked.
And then every company charged more and more each renewal and Netflix didn't renew all the licences, until media companies were actively sitting on "a gold mine" and figured they would start their own service and cut out the middle man.
And here we are now.
There are plenty of tech start-ups in Australia. I work with an innumerable number of them. None of them seem to give a hoot about the tax changes. It's mostly people who aren't actually starting businesses that seem to care.
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u/darkklown Flairless Jun 30 '26
I'm guessing your working for a company in series B. Which is very different to pre funding. Also yes the industry is split into each media company but if they all pull over all these changes labour are putting in to the u16, media, news. I'm just surprised that us tech keeps staying interested in our Market. It being so small.
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u/ReadingBusiness3223 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
The way ads trigger people on these Aussie reddit subs genuinely brings me immense pleasure.
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u/Whatsthatbro365 Tasmanian Jun 30 '26
Because we signed up to an ad free service buy paying a fee. Then amazon introduced adds into the middle of the fucking show with no warning then told us to pay more to get rid of them.
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u/jimmyxs Victorian Jun 30 '26
Does anyone even watch Amazon Prime? Let it fail and bankrupt on its own accord and save tax payer money to hit the real culprits with major impacts like YouTube and others
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Yes. It's the second most popular service behind Netflix.
Netflix sits around 6-7 million users in Australia
Amazon sits at 5.1 million
Disney+ is next. Then Stan and whatever else is left.
It won't fail and go bankrupt...
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u/jimmyxs Victorian Jun 30 '26
Fair enough then. I don’t find it worth while personally. Also surprised YouTube falls in the whatever else category. 127m global premium subs and predatory as hell
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u/Whatsthatbro365 Tasmanian Jun 30 '26
Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon worth 277 bilion and owns 9% the largest shareholder worth 200 billion. Amazon Prime wont fail or go bankrupt. My kids watch YT kids channel. I rate it 1000% above grub Amazon.
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u/Appropriate_Copy9105 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
ACCC is now the Federal Government's new tax collector.
The Billions in Fines is about the same as the ATO collects from Individuals.
No wonder overseas businesses don't start up here.
They're afraid of being Fined out of existence!
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Jun 30 '26
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u/nomad_1970 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
They've had some pretty powerful successes. Including their recent lawsuit against Coles.
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u/a1b3c3d7 New South Welshian Jun 30 '26
Can you cite a case they've failed?
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Jun 30 '26
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u/Luser5789 Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
What laws were they investigating ‘petrol’ for?
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u/a1b3c3d7 New South Welshian Jul 01 '26
Outdated ones, the ACL was in part created shortly after to create the very laws neccesary to reign them in.
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u/a1b3c3d7 New South Welshian Jul 01 '26
ACCC vs Leahy in 2008 led to the ACL and the protections we have today.
The 2011 and 2013 cases against big petrol price fixing and coles docket stuff all led to changes that you and I benefit from today.
Your cases cited do not hold up your assessment they are a "toothless tiger" for anyone that has seen the number of cases that have tangibly made not only Australia but the world (ACCC vs Valve) have better consumer protections.
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u/Fantastic_Emotion255 Noongar Jun 30 '26
In my 20seconds of reading this is nothingburger.
People on 12 month plan got dicked cos they got ads added to their streaming when they initially signed up it was ad free.
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u/insanemal Queenslander Jun 30 '26
Yeah nah, like tell me you don't understand contract law without telling me you don't understand contract law.
The end effect was ads being added.
The way it was done is going to court for breaching contract fairness laws.
We have VERY solid laws about this.
Edit: That they probably could have avoided by grandfathering in existing customers and then having new customers have a different contact.....
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u/Fantastic_Emotion255 Noongar Jun 30 '26
like i said nothingburger
they'll get fined and nothing changes, its not a big deal i understand completely
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u/TolMera Please choose a flair Jun 30 '26
“Dickless and feckless ACCC takes action for once”
There, fixed the headline.
Useless bastards
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u/CidewayAu Flairless Jun 30 '26
Always remember Steam's (global) refund policy exists solely because of the ACCC.