Australia Lawsuit Against Amazon Intensifies Company’s Legal Backlash Over Advertising

Australia Alleges U.S. Mothership Knew of Australian Branch’s Conduct

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has sued Amazon Australia for allegedly rolling out ads, but then unfairly changing the cost of avoiding them.

The ACCC website claims that from 2023 to 2025, Amazon Price contracts were unfair, in that Amazon could “unilaterally make negative changes” without any recourse for the customer. So when Amazon Prime rolled out ads in 2024, the suit said this version of the contract enabled Amazon to unfairly force ad-free customers onto a more expensive tier if they wanted to stay ad-free.

The ACCC also claims that Amazon U.S. “was knowingly concerned in Amazon AU’s conduct.”

U.S. Federal Trade Commission Case Still in Progress

Meanwhile, anonymous reports are strongly hinting at a big case against Amazon’s marketplace ads from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. That still-in-progress suit would, if real, allege that Amazon makes its ad auctions deceptively opaque, keeping sellers unaware of how much competition there is for ad space on a given search, and tempting them to pay more than a fair price for ads.

Amazon’s Advertising Dominance by the Numbers

• Amazon made $68 billion in ad revenue last year.
• The five Big Tech firms - Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, and TikTok - reportedly rake in two thirds of all ad revenue now, according to a MoffettNathanson report from last year.
• Also in 2025, Amazon was the largest advertiser in the world by amount spent, according to Ad Age.