The Consumer Advice Centre Saxony (Verbraucherzentrale Sachsen) has filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon, with over 18,500 participants. The consumer organization is suing Prime Video for adding advertisements by default, which it claims is a covert price rise.

The Amazon streaming service has begun displaying ad breaks in movies and TV shows since February. Subscribers must pay an extra 3 euros a month if they do not wish to view the advertisements. Consumer advocates believe that this is against the law. Amazon has not asked for its consumers’ consent; it has just notified them of the impending price increase.

Consent would have been required for the introduction of the advertising subscription, which the consumer groups view as a major alteration to the contract. They contend that to continue using their subscription, clients would now need to pay extra.

The Saxony Consumer Advice Centre claims that each user is eligible for a monthly reimbursement of three euros. The class action is open to anybody who had a Prime Video membership prior to 5 February 2024.

In a motion to dismiss a comparable case in the United States, Amazon referenced its terms of service, which indicate that the company reserves the right to unilaterally add or remove benefits associated with Prime membership. Although it promotes Prime Video as being free of advertisements, the company retains the right to modify or remove this feature at its discretion and at any time, Amazon says.

Last year, the Federal Trade Commission initiated legal action against Amazon, claiming that it misled consumers into subscribing to its Prime service while subsequently obstructing their ability to cancel their subscriptions. The lawsuit contended that Amazon utilizes a “manipulative” and “coercive” interface to deceive users into signing up for automatically renewing subscriptions.