Amazon is seeking to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed by Prime Video users disgruntled over its addition of ads by default.
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In the Oct. 4 filing, the ecommerce giant pointed to its terms and conditions, which note that Amazon may “choose in its sole discretion to add or remove Prime membership benefits.”
“Amazon never promised — to Prime members or anyone else — that Prime Video would be always, or entirely, ad-free,” the company said in the filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle.
In February 2024, a lawsuit that was filed against Amazon on behalf of Prime Video users accused the company of false advertising and deceptive practices over the change by Prime Video to serve ads unless customers pay $2.99/month more.
In its response, Amazon asserted that it “has always disclosed that the bundle of Prime benefits is subject to change… In other words, Amazon never guaranteed that any particular Prime benefit would remain available indefinitely; it expressly stated the opposite.”
The Prime Video users who are suing Amazon “got exactly what they bargained for,” Amazon’s motion to dismiss said. “One Prime benefit is access to Prime Video, a world-class streaming service with a massive library of movies, shows, and other digital content, including award-winning original and exclusive content.” In December 2023, Amazon announced to all Prime members that, beginning 30 days later, some Prime Video movie sand TV shows would also include “limited advertisements.”
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However, Prime Video “has long included limited advertisements during live sports events and other content. And Amazon never promised — to Prime members or anyone else — that Prime Video would be always, or entirely, ad-free. But because Amazon understood that some people would prefer not to see ads, Amazon offered an option for Prime Video users to watch ad-free content for $2.99/month,” according to the company’s filing.
The class-action lawsuit accused Amazon of false advertising and deceptive practices over the addition of ads to Prime Video by default. The original suit was filed on behalf of Wilbert Napoleon, a resident of Eastvale, Calif. Amazon’s conduct, as alleged, “was immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous and substantially injurious to consumers,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, including punitive damages, as well as an injunction to block Amazon’s alleged deceptive conduct.
“For years, people purchased and renewed their Amazon Prime subscriptions believing that they would include ad-free streaming,” the lawsuit said. “But last month, Amazon changed the deal. To stream movies and TV shows without ads, Amazon customers must now pay an additional $2.99 per month… This is not fair, because these subscribers already paid for the ad-free version; these subscribers should not have to pay an additional $2.99/month for something that they already paid for.”
In its Oct. 4 filing, Amazon claimed that the plaintiffs “know that their claims under the Prime Terms are dead-on-arrival — as other courts (including in this District) have repeatedly held — because the contract expressly provides that some Prime benefits might change over time.” So instead the plaintiffs “cite the separate Prime Video Terms of Use (‘Prime Video Terms’), which cover some aspects — but, importantly, not all aspects — of Plaintiffs’ use of Prime Video,” according to Amazon’s filing. But none of the five plaintiffs in the case signed up for the Prime Video-only subscription, Amazon said. Moreover, “even if the Prime Video Terms were germane, they do not prohibit subscription fee increases; to the contrary, they expressly allow fee increases and give Prime Video subscribers the option to cancel to avoid the higher fee.”
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