An Amazon Prime subscriber has a big problem with the corporate’s implementation of ads on Prime Video and filed a category motion lawsuit on Friday difficult the move.
The plaintiff, who lives in California, leveled allegations of misleading promoting and consumer protection law breaches against Amazon in connection to its “unfair” change to ads on Prime Video. The court filing was published and earlier reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
The lawsuit comes about per week and a half after the corporate began mechanically showing limited ads to US subscribers and asking those looking to proceed streaming without them to pay an additional charge every month. The fee to go ad-free is $2.99.
The plaintiff asked the court to certify it as a class motion covering individuals who paid for an annual Amazon Prime membership before Dec. 28 of last yr. He also urged the court to grant other relief like an injunction “prohibiting Defendant’s deceptive conduct,” various damages and a jury trial, according to the filing.
Within the lawsuit, it argued consumers “who subscribed to Amazon Prime before the change reasonably expected that their Amazon Prime subscription would come with ad-free streaming of movies and television shows at some stage in the subscription” due to promoting the e-commerce giant had done over the years for the service. Amazon’s marketing of the service misled and hurt annual subscription consumers “by depriving them of the reasonable expectations to which they’re entitled” after the automated ads kicked in, the filing claimed.
It also alleged, amongst other things, that Amazon “breached the contracts with Plaintiff and sophistication members by failing to provide ad-free streaming of television shows and flicks as promised” once they signed up for an annual membership.
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Amazon declined a FOX Business request for comment in regards to the lawsuit.
When Amazon first revealed in late September that it might bring limited ads to Prime Video content, the corporate pointed to its desire to “proceed investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over an extended time frame” as the explanation for the change. It has put out content like “The Boys,” “Reacher,” “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
The corporate also said on the time that it might “email Prime members several weeks before ads are introduced into Prime Video with information on how to join for the ad-free option in the event that they would really like.” The associated fee of Prime stayed flat for the choice with ads.
Ad-supported plans have grow to be increasingly more common amongst streaming platforms lately as they seek to boost revenue.