The adage “read the fine print” has seen Amazon defeat a class action by customers angered by changes to its Prime subscription service.
Prime subscribers took Amazon to court over its decision last year to include ads by default in its popular subscription service of TV shows and movies.
The service has more than 100 million subscribers.
Prime subscribers were angry that they had to pay an additional US$2.99 per month to remove the ads and return to ad-free viewing.
However, US District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein said it was a case of customers not reading Amazon’s Prime terms and Video Terms.
“Both the Prime Terms and the Video Terms repeatedly reserve to Amazon the right to modify, add, or remove benefits associated with memberships,” the judge wrote in her order.
She said that Amazon “never promised subscribers” that its service would remain ad-free, according to a report on proceedings in The Hollywood Reporter.
Users in the class action claimed breach of contract and violations of state consumer protection laws in what they claimed were “bait and switch” tactics.
They claimed the change amounted to an increase in price for Prime subscribers.
“It is true that Amazon’s introduction of commercials to its streaming service, for those Prime members who chose to pay more to keep their streaming ad-free, ultimately had an effect on those subscribers’ wallets tantamount to a ‘price increase,’” the court order said.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
“The Court, however, is compelled to maintain the distinction between a benefit removal and a price increase,” The Hollywood reporter said, quoting the order.
“The only subscribers who experienced any price increase were those who voluntarily chose to incur one by opting in to the additional charge to avoid ads.”
This is not the only class action case that Amazon is facing.
Last month, a proposed class action by customers accused Amazon of secretly tracking their movements through their phones, and selling data collected from them.
“Amazon obtained ‘backdoor access’ to consumers’ phones by providing tens of thousands of app developers with code known as Amazon Ads SDK to be embedded in their apps,” Reuters reported.
The report said the app allowed Amazon to collect timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit.
It is claimed that tracking is not limited to Amazon-aligned apps. The complainant said even the “Speedtest by Ookla” app on his phone used the tracking code, the report said.
