6 ms·

Germany: Amazon is not allowed to force customers to watch ads on Prime Video

217 points by febed 9mo ago

SecretDreams 9mo ago
Good?
- eru 9mo ago
  It was already legal for customers to buy ad free products and it was legal for companies to sell them. In any case, the headline oversells the ruling: it's only about changing the conditions for existing customers. Amazon can let the old contracts run out and sign up people under a new scheme, that allows them to show ads.
  - rogerrogerr 9mo ago
    Aren’t the majority of these contracts month to month, with a few annual ones sprinkled in?
    - oaiey 9mo ago
      Exactly. This is a pointless discussion. Just a badly executed legal change. Good that they are reminded that they have to stick to the law, but for consumers practically there is no change.
    - eru 9mo ago
      I think they get auto-renewed, and German law places limits on what you can change.
    - hermanzegerman 9mo ago
      Prime is usually a yearly contract
  - yorwba 9mo ago
    Ending the old contracts and asking people to sign up for new ones risks losing customers who don't particularly care about keeping their subscription but didn't bother to cancel either. Which is why Amazon would prefer to keep the old contracts running and unilaterally change the conditions. Defaults matter.
    - eru 9mo ago
      > Which is why Amazon would prefer to keep the old contracts running and unilaterally change the conditions. Defaults matter. Yes, and that matters in the short run. In the long run, churn is unavoidable.
jonhohle 9mo ago
Good! In the US ads were added after telling Prime members they’d get ad free content as part of their membership. I complained about this during a meeting (I worked on Prime during the Prime Video launch), but was shot down because the ads were pre-roll trailers for Amazon produced content. Of course that turned into just ads, everywhere. I’m glad the court saw it for what it was: bait and switch.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- PacificSpecific 9mo ago
  That was the point that made me remove Amazon from my life. Obviously it was building up but kudos to Amazon for being the one to push me over the line to quit up Amazon.
- simula67 9mo ago
  I am glad to hear that there was someone who argued for the right course of action in the Amazon Prime organization. I don't know why this is not being fought by other regulators. I also paid for Amazon Prime, expecting to get ad-free content, and then they started to add advertisements. This may not be fraud, but it is definitely lowering my opinion of Amazon.
  - pfisch 9mo ago
    I'm confused. Do you think you were owed no ads indefinitely? They can't change what the membership offers ever? So if they stopped letting you watch their new content because you had an old no ads membership would that be ok?
    - tombert 9mo ago
      Not the person you're replying to, but it just feels like rent-seeking. Amazon is already a gigantic corporation, pretty much everyone spends lots and lots of money on Amazon, it just felt like a way to try and squeeze more money out of their existing customers. ETA: I mean, I'm sure there is some exception to this, but generally speaking everyone hates ads. Part of the reason that the whole "cable cutting" thing happened was because everyone hated paying a lot of money to some cable company just to be bombarded with advertisements. At least that's a big reason as to why I did it. Now all these media companies realized that they can start shoving ads at us again and people will keep paying. Obviously I'm not entitled to having media at a specific price indefinitely, but I'm perfectly allowed to not like it when companies engage in rent-seeking bullshit.
camillomiller 9mo ago
Oh look, regulation! So weird that it works for the consumer, right?
- vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
  We don’t want socialism with its burdensome regulations!
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    All a matter of balance. It can become like that in the wrong hands and often is. Here it is doing something useful. If only they could stop these companies spying as well.
- oaiey 9mo ago
  That is neither regulation (just standard contract law) and IMHO a formality, because Amazon could have just formulated it differently: hey we terminate your contract, next offer: same thing with ads (vs. Hey we change the contract for profit). This is not a structural victory just a badly executed change.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo ago
    The reason they don't do that is inertia. "Hey we terminate your contract, here's a new worse one" will result in far fewer customers than "lol you got ads now". Same with a lot of providers simply unilaterally raising prices. Entirely illegal, but they are mostly getting away with it.
- Atlas667 9mo ago
  Amazon probably weren't paying the politicians enough money so the politicians aren't gonna let them screw the consumer! Ah, capitalism, with your endless power imbalance.
vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
I so much hate it that we have built an economy where companies believe the best way forward is to cram ads into everything instead of building better products.
- chroma205 9mo ago
  > I so much hate it that we have built an economy where companies believe the best way forward is to cram ads into everything instead of building better products. Blame the consumers. They don’t want to pay for monthly subscriptions because “economy is tough”
  - argomo 9mo ago
    It's an unstable equilibrium: companies can always make more by adding ads, therefore they do so. This isn't the consumer's fault.
  - yannyu 9mo ago
    Or maybe companies turned products that were one-time purchases into monthly subscriptions. Or companies made it incredibly hard to cancel monthly subscriptions. Or companies will continue to charge and auto-renew us even when we clearly don't use the product. Or companies will unilaterally degrade our service or push us to lower tiers in order to better serve customers who aren't you. Or companies will have us pay a monthly subscription, and then also sell our data to the highest bidder anyway. Maybe many of these companies have never had our interest at heart, and people are tired of feeling constantly screwed over and seen as a revenue stream instead of customers.
  - riffraff 9mo ago
    but we _were_ paying for monthly subscriptions to prime vide.
  - bnegreve 9mo ago
    > Blame the consumers. The consumer is not a single person, and until we (the consumers) all coordinate, our individual incentive is to not pay (Classical prisoner dilemma). So "voting with your wallet" doesn't maximize your personal interest.
almosthere 9mo ago
force? turn it off or use another service? we got into such a place where we don't encourage competition.
- clickety_clack 9mo ago
  In an open market, customers should be able to make informed decisions. Lying to customers about your product distorts the market. People may have switched from other services to prime expecting that there would be no ads. That undermines the business of those competitors, and may drive them out so that they are no longer available if you want to switch back.
aljgz 9mo ago
It should also be illegal to have ads in the Amazon marketplace (where we pay to buy products), Google/apple app store (where people already paid for a phone), Uber ride, and basically anywhere we have already paid to use something. If this is not stopped, there's no limit, your car, TV, fridge, it will be everywhere, and it pumps more and more income away from people and products/service providers into advertisers' pockets.
- creesch 9mo ago
  It really should be illegal. Companies aren't going to do it themselves as it is a huge potential revenue stream. So much so that it effectively has become the main focus of some companies who we as consumers still perceive as online stores/marketplaces. Specifically sponsored search results apparently can become a bigger income stream than the one from actual sales themselves. Which is great for these companies, terrible for us consumers.
  - insickness 9mo ago
    It's one thing to enforce contracts but another for government to dictate how private platforms monetize their own property. If ads make the service worse, the answer is competition and exit, not government bans. No one is forcing you to use these platforms.
    - creesch 9mo ago
      That argument ignores the reality of the current market structure. The "competition and exit" theory only works when valid alternatives actually exist. Right now, we are dealing with effective monopolies and duopolies. You can't just exit the App Store if you have an iPhone, and Amazon has cornered the market so hard that switching isn't really an option for most people. When competition is dead, the market can't self-correct because consumers have nowhere else to go. Also, "monetizing their own property" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your take. These platforms already charge: transaction fees, commissions, listing fees, higher product prices baked in, and in many cases consumers are paying directly (Prime, app purchases, ride fares). Injecting ads is basically double charging. On top of that it shifts the platform from "help me find the best match" to "whoever pays the platform wins". Honestly, unless you are in a C-suite role, I'm not sure why you would defend a model that actively works against you as a consumer.
didip 9mo ago
This is good. It upsets me that I am already a Prime member but I still have to pay on top of that. I actually prefer they increase the price but bundle everything in 1 membership.
pjmlp 9mo ago
This is why I never paid the additional payment they are asking for, and if they make Prime Video extra, good riddance.
- ScoobleDoodle 9mo ago
  I paid the additional payment because I hate watching ads and wanted to watch some series without it. Now Amazon Prime Video has made some ads show even while having this additional payment!
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    I rather test my patience, than give in to the guys that visit me telling that accidents do happen and a little insurance doesn't do any harm. Because that is how Amazon adding ads with payment to remove them, to existing customers feels like. Organised crime neighborhood motto.
rdtsc 9mo ago
I'd say this is a victory for consumers though I suspect Amazon will just raise the prices of Prime by $5/month or whatever people pay "extra" to get rid of ads, and just claim that it's part of the "regulatory environment" in Germany.
- BloondAndDoom 9mo ago
  That’s better since it’s honest offering, and I think they’d still lose money. It’s not like there aren’t enough streaming services to compete with
silisili 9mo ago
I have always disliked ads, but this has slowly grown into outright unreasonable anger as the years go. I just cancel anything I'm paying for that shows intrusive ads. I was a little worried about cancelling Amazon Prime at first, but realized I didn't -really- need some JIXFOZ branded gadgets next day, after all. I plead with everyone who feels similarly to vote with their feet/wallet. It's the only hope of getting out of this mess.
- shakna 9mo ago
  Advertising is predicated on it _not_ working for everyone. Voting with your wallet is simply not enough if it can still influence others. This is a field that requires regulation to see any difference.
- harry8 9mo ago
  If pleading is the only way out of the mess, learn to tolerate the mess.
- louthy 9mo ago
  > cancelling Amazon Prime at first, but realized I didn't -really- need some JIXFOZ branded gadgets next day, after all. The problem with cancelling Prime is the unrelenting haranguing to re-sign up and the clearly punitive delivery charges. You get adverts from cancelling due to adverts and end up paying more. I’ve just started to focus my purchases at specialist UK stores, rather than defaulting to Amazon for everything.
  - distances 9mo ago
    The delivery fees are a good thing. I end up with less impulse purchases when I have to bookmark my wants until I have a pooled enough for free delivery. Turns out I don't need that many things after all.
tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo ago
I wonder if they will also be forced to compensate customers (e.g. by having to pay out the ad revenue to them). I think it's a real possibility; without it, companies have little reason not to try this kind of thing over and over - either they get away with it, or they get away with it temporarily.
Too 9mo ago
Is anyone paying for Prime just for streaming? I always saw it as a nice bonus included with free shipping and all the other discounts you get on Amazon, it breaks even very quickly. It cost half of a Netflix subscription. The content is also half the quality, so it’s not like I would like to pay anything for it anyway. I hate ads as much as anyone, after the ad introductions I just stopped slop watching.
vander_elst 9mo ago
IANAL, but it seems it's a technicality on how the conditions of the contract changed? IIUC they forcibly changed the contract without notice. If they would have sent a notice first and then let the consumers decide whether to get out or move on with the new contact and new conditions, it would have been fine to serve ads. The title seems like a clickbait.
noodlebird 9mo ago
if you're based in germany and have had prime before february 5th, 2024, you might be eligible for compensation. here is the page of the consumer rights commitee where you can take part (don't fret if you get physical mail from the federal bureau of justice a few days later): https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/vertraege-reklamation/kundenrechte/sammelklage-gegen-amazon-prime-klageregister-geoeffnet-95674 https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/vertraege-reklamat...
nephihaha 9mo ago
I agree with this decision. Now onto the other problem... Why are you selling me a subscription which doesn't give you access to most of the content on your site? I was on Amazon Prime recently and most stuff had a padlock on it. Some of it was very old, i.e. thirty years older or more.
- danielbln 9mo ago
  That's a common (but no less frustrating) model, Apple does it that way. Certain things are included in the sub, but you can also purchase things that aren't. At least Apple makes it reasonably easy to filter and find stuff, Amazons UX is a fever dream.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    I agree. I hate it! I do watch old films and TV and I find it pathetic I still have to pay for films made before I was born (I am no spring chicken).
munksbeer 9mo ago
I think it's great that this was challenged, but won't the outcome just be that they switch to use Netflix tactics? They'll increase the Prime fee for existing "no ads" customers (allowed), and offer a lower "with ads" tier?
amai 9mo ago
Like the same issue with Sky PayTV in Germany 10 years ago? https://www.anwaltsregister.de/Rechtsfragen/Sonderkuendigungsrecht_Pay-TV_Sender_Sky_fuehrt_Werbeunterbrechung_bei_Serien_ein__duerfen_Kunden_deshalb_ihr_Sky-Abonnement_kuendigen.d1847.html https://www.anwaltsregister.de/Rechtsfragen/Sonderkuendigung...

217 points by febed 9mo ago

SecretDreams 9mo ago

Good?

eru 9mo ago
It was already legal for customers to buy ad free products and it was legal for companies to sell them. In any case, the headline oversells the ruling: it's only about changing the conditions for existing customers. Amazon can let the old contracts run out and sign up people under a new scheme, that allows them to show ads.
- rogerrogerr 9mo ago
  Aren’t the majority of these contracts month to month, with a few annual ones sprinkled in?
  - oaiey 9mo ago
    Exactly. This is a pointless discussion. Just a badly executed legal change. Good that they are reminded that they have to stick to the law, but for consumers practically there is no change.
  - eru 9mo ago
    I think they get auto-renewed, and German law places limits on what you can change.
  - hermanzegerman 9mo ago
    Prime is usually a yearly contract
- yorwba 9mo ago
  Ending the old contracts and asking people to sign up for new ones risks losing customers who don't particularly care about keeping their subscription but didn't bother to cancel either. Which is why Amazon would prefer to keep the old contracts running and unilaterally change the conditions. Defaults matter.
  - eru 9mo ago
    > Which is why Amazon would prefer to keep the old contracts running and unilaterally change the conditions. Defaults matter. Yes, and that matters in the short run. In the long run, churn is unavoidable.

jonhohle 9mo ago

Good! In the US ads were added after telling Prime members they’d get ad free content as part of their membership. I complained about this during a meeting (I worked on Prime during the Prime Video launch), but was shot down because the ads were pre-roll trailers for Amazon produced content. Of course that turned into just ads, everywhere. I’m glad the court saw it for what it was: bait and switch.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
PacificSpecific 9mo ago
That was the point that made me remove Amazon from my life. Obviously it was building up but kudos to Amazon for being the one to push me over the line to quit up Amazon.
simula67 9mo ago
I am glad to hear that there was someone who argued for the right course of action in the Amazon Prime organization. I don't know why this is not being fought by other regulators. I also paid for Amazon Prime, expecting to get ad-free content, and then they started to add advertisements. This may not be fraud, but it is definitely lowering my opinion of Amazon.
- pfisch 9mo ago
  I'm confused. Do you think you were owed no ads indefinitely? They can't change what the membership offers ever? So if they stopped letting you watch their new content because you had an old no ads membership would that be ok?
  - tombert 9mo ago
    Not the person you're replying to, but it just feels like rent-seeking. Amazon is already a gigantic corporation, pretty much everyone spends lots and lots of money on Amazon, it just felt like a way to try and squeeze more money out of their existing customers. ETA: I mean, I'm sure there is some exception to this, but generally speaking everyone hates ads. Part of the reason that the whole "cable cutting" thing happened was because everyone hated paying a lot of money to some cable company just to be bombarded with advertisements. At least that's a big reason as to why I did it. Now all these media companies realized that they can start shoving ads at us again and people will keep paying. Obviously I'm not entitled to having media at a specific price indefinitely, but I'm perfectly allowed to not like it when companies engage in rent-seeking bullshit.

camillomiller 9mo ago

Oh look, regulation! So weird that it works for the consumer, right?

vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago
We don’t want socialism with its burdensome regulations!
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  All a matter of balance. It can become like that in the wrong hands and often is. Here it is doing something useful. If only they could stop these companies spying as well.
oaiey 9mo ago
That is neither regulation (just standard contract law) and IMHO a formality, because Amazon could have just formulated it differently: hey we terminate your contract, next offer: same thing with ads (vs. Hey we change the contract for profit). This is not a structural victory just a badly executed change.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo ago
  The reason they don't do that is inertia. "Hey we terminate your contract, here's a new worse one" will result in far fewer customers than "lol you got ads now". Same with a lot of providers simply unilaterally raising prices. Entirely illegal, but they are mostly getting away with it.
Atlas667 9mo ago
Amazon probably weren't paying the politicians enough money so the politicians aren't gonna let them screw the consumer! Ah, capitalism, with your endless power imbalance.

vjvjvjvjghv 9mo ago

I so much hate it that we have built an economy where companies believe the best way forward is to cram ads into everything instead of building better products.

chroma205 9mo ago
> I so much hate it that we have built an economy where companies believe the best way forward is to cram ads into everything instead of building better products. Blame the consumers. They don’t want to pay for monthly subscriptions because “economy is tough”
- argomo 9mo ago
  It's an unstable equilibrium: companies can always make more by adding ads, therefore they do so. This isn't the consumer's fault.
- yannyu 9mo ago
  Or maybe companies turned products that were one-time purchases into monthly subscriptions. Or companies made it incredibly hard to cancel monthly subscriptions. Or companies will continue to charge and auto-renew us even when we clearly don't use the product. Or companies will unilaterally degrade our service or push us to lower tiers in order to better serve customers who aren't you. Or companies will have us pay a monthly subscription, and then also sell our data to the highest bidder anyway. Maybe many of these companies have never had our interest at heart, and people are tired of feeling constantly screwed over and seen as a revenue stream instead of customers.
- riffraff 9mo ago
  but we _were_ paying for monthly subscriptions to prime vide.
- bnegreve 9mo ago
  > Blame the consumers. The consumer is not a single person, and until we (the consumers) all coordinate, our individual incentive is to not pay (Classical prisoner dilemma). So "voting with your wallet" doesn't maximize your personal interest.

almosthere 9mo ago

force? turn it off or use another service? we got into such a place where we don't encourage competition.

clickety_clack 9mo ago
In an open market, customers should be able to make informed decisions. Lying to customers about your product distorts the market. People may have switched from other services to prime expecting that there would be no ads. That undermines the business of those competitors, and may drive them out so that they are no longer available if you want to switch back.

aljgz 9mo ago

It should also be illegal to have ads in the Amazon marketplace (where we pay to buy products), Google/apple app store (where people already paid for a phone), Uber ride, and basically anywhere we have already paid to use something. If this is not stopped, there's no limit, your car, TV, fridge, it will be everywhere, and it pumps more and more income away from people and products/service providers into advertisers' pockets.

creesch 9mo ago
It really should be illegal. Companies aren't going to do it themselves as it is a huge potential revenue stream. So much so that it effectively has become the main focus of some companies who we as consumers still perceive as online stores/marketplaces. Specifically sponsored search results apparently can become a bigger income stream than the one from actual sales themselves. Which is great for these companies, terrible for us consumers.
- insickness 9mo ago
  It's one thing to enforce contracts but another for government to dictate how private platforms monetize their own property. If ads make the service worse, the answer is competition and exit, not government bans. No one is forcing you to use these platforms.
  - creesch 9mo ago
    That argument ignores the reality of the current market structure. The "competition and exit" theory only works when valid alternatives actually exist. Right now, we are dealing with effective monopolies and duopolies. You can't just exit the App Store if you have an iPhone, and Amazon has cornered the market so hard that switching isn't really an option for most people. When competition is dead, the market can't self-correct because consumers have nowhere else to go. Also, "monetizing their own property" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your take. These platforms already charge: transaction fees, commissions, listing fees, higher product prices baked in, and in many cases consumers are paying directly (Prime, app purchases, ride fares). Injecting ads is basically double charging. On top of that it shifts the platform from "help me find the best match" to "whoever pays the platform wins". Honestly, unless you are in a C-suite role, I'm not sure why you would defend a model that actively works against you as a consumer.

didip 9mo ago

This is good. It upsets me that I am already a Prime member but I still have to pay on top of that. I actually prefer they increase the price but bundle everything in 1 membership.

pjmlp 9mo ago

This is why I never paid the additional payment they are asking for, and if they make Prime Video extra, good riddance.

ScoobleDoodle 9mo ago
I paid the additional payment because I hate watching ads and wanted to watch some series without it. Now Amazon Prime Video has made some ads show even while having this additional payment!
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  I rather test my patience, than give in to the guys that visit me telling that accidents do happen and a little insurance doesn't do any harm. Because that is how Amazon adding ads with payment to remove them, to existing customers feels like. Organised crime neighborhood motto.

rdtsc 9mo ago

I'd say this is a victory for consumers though I suspect Amazon will just raise the prices of Prime by $5/month or whatever people pay "extra" to get rid of ads, and just claim that it's part of the "regulatory environment" in Germany.

BloondAndDoom 9mo ago
That’s better since it’s honest offering, and I think they’d still lose money. It’s not like there aren’t enough streaming services to compete with

silisili 9mo ago

I have always disliked ads, but this has slowly grown into outright unreasonable anger as the years go. I just cancel anything I'm paying for that shows intrusive ads. I was a little worried about cancelling Amazon Prime at first, but realized I didn't -really- need some JIXFOZ branded gadgets next day, after all. I plead with everyone who feels similarly to vote with their feet/wallet. It's the only hope of getting out of this mess.

shakna 9mo ago
Advertising is predicated on it _not_ working for everyone. Voting with your wallet is simply not enough if it can still influence others. This is a field that requires regulation to see any difference.
harry8 9mo ago
If pleading is the only way out of the mess, learn to tolerate the mess.
louthy 9mo ago
> cancelling Amazon Prime at first, but realized I didn't -really- need some JIXFOZ branded gadgets next day, after all. The problem with cancelling Prime is the unrelenting haranguing to re-sign up and the clearly punitive delivery charges. You get adverts from cancelling due to adverts and end up paying more. I’ve just started to focus my purchases at specialist UK stores, rather than defaulting to Amazon for everything.
- distances 9mo ago
  The delivery fees are a good thing. I end up with less impulse purchases when I have to bookmark my wants until I have a pooled enough for free delivery. Turns out I don't need that many things after all.

tgsovlerkhgsel 9mo ago

I wonder if they will also be forced to compensate customers (e.g. by having to pay out the ad revenue to them). I think it's a real possibility; without it, companies have little reason not to try this kind of thing over and over - either they get away with it, or they get away with it temporarily.

Too 9mo ago

Is anyone paying for Prime just for streaming? I always saw it as a nice bonus included with free shipping and all the other discounts you get on Amazon, it breaks even very quickly. It cost half of a Netflix subscription. The content is also half the quality, so it’s not like I would like to pay anything for it anyway. I hate ads as much as anyone, after the ad introductions I just stopped slop watching.

vander_elst 9mo ago

IANAL, but it seems it's a technicality on how the conditions of the contract changed? IIUC they forcibly changed the contract without notice. If they would have sent a notice first and then let the consumers decide whether to get out or move on with the new contact and new conditions, it would have been fine to serve ads. The title seems like a clickbait.

noodlebird 9mo ago

if you're based in germany and have had prime before february 5th, 2024, you might be eligible for compensation. here is the page of the consumer rights commitee where you can take part (don't fret if you get physical mail from the federal bureau of justice a few days later): https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/vertraege-reklamation/kundenrechte/sammelklage-gegen-amazon-prime-klageregister-geoeffnet-95674 https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/vertraege-reklamat...

nephihaha 9mo ago

I agree with this decision. Now onto the other problem... Why are you selling me a subscription which doesn't give you access to most of the content on your site? I was on Amazon Prime recently and most stuff had a padlock on it. Some of it was very old, i.e. thirty years older or more.

danielbln 9mo ago
That's a common (but no less frustrating) model, Apple does it that way. Certain things are included in the sub, but you can also purchase things that aren't. At least Apple makes it reasonably easy to filter and find stuff, Amazons UX is a fever dream.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  I agree. I hate it! I do watch old films and TV and I find it pathetic I still have to pay for films made before I was born (I am no spring chicken).

munksbeer 9mo ago

I think it's great that this was challenged, but won't the outcome just be that they switch to use Netflix tactics? They'll increase the Prime fee for existing "no ads" customers (allowed), and offer a lower "with ads" tier?

amai 9mo ago

Like the same issue with Sky PayTV in Germany 10 years ago? https://www.anwaltsregister.de/Rechtsfragen/Sonderkuendigungsrecht_Pay-TV_Sender_Sky_fuehrt_Werbeunterbrechung_bei_Serien_ein__duerfen_Kunden_deshalb_ihr_Sky-Abonnement_kuendigen.d1847.html https://www.anwaltsregister.de/Rechtsfragen/Sonderkuendigung...