Amazon is facing legal action in the United States after making a major change to its Prime Video service that also affects users in the UK. Meanwhile, Prime Video users have found that some features have been taken away.
- Users unhappy at introduction of ads, legal claim that Amazon’s action is ‘unfair’.
- Amazon removes access to Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, unless customers pay more. It didn’t warn consumers that would happen.
In the past few weeks Amazon Prime subscribers around the world have been given the choice between staying with their current subscription and seeing ads or paying an additional fee to remain ad-free.
And it appears that wasn’t the only choice. Amazon has sneakily also removed support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision – unless viewers pay extra. The development was first spotted in Germany, where Amazon only retrospectively confirmed subscribers would only get those features back if they paid extra for an ad-free experience. Confirmation of the feature downgrade only came after a backlash from users around the world.
In California, one user is taking legal action against Amazon. The proposed class action lawsuit, filed last Friday in California federal court, claims a breach of contract and violations of Californian consumer protection laws on behalf of users who saw the terms of their subscriptions with Amazon change. The complaint states “subscribers must now pay extra to get something they already paid for”. The changes were described as “unfair”.
The proposed class action seeks at least $5 million in damages, plus a court order stopping Amazon from engaging in “further deceptive conduct” on behalf of users who subscribed to Prime prior to 28th December 2023, when users began to be notified of changes to Prime Video.
Contrast to Disney+
Amazon’s decision to default users on to an ad-funded tier is in contrast to Disney. Last year Disney attempted to move Disney+ subscribers to its more expensive premium tier, retaining all current features, unless users proactively opted out and downgraded. Recent figures published by Barb indicate that at least in the UK, a number of users opted out of Disney+ altogether.