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Amazon Prime Video

Serious concerns
Amazon · 🇺🇸 United States
PolicyApp PermissionsNetwork TrafficFirmwareRegulatory
Technical details
App: Amazon Prime Video
Manufacturer: Amazon

The bottom line

Watch a cooking show on Prime Video — Amazon recommends kitchen gadgets. Watch a documentary about anxiety — Amazon suggests supplements. Watch a pregnancy movie — baby products appear in your feed. Amazon is the only streaming service that can sell you what you just watched. Your viewing habits are a shopping signal, and Amazon connects every screen to your cart. You paid $139/year for Prime. That included ad-free streaming. Then Amazon added ads and charged you $2.99/month extra to remove them. 200 million people were downgraded overnight. The ad-free experience you paid for became a premium add-on. Amazon didn't add a cheaper tier — they made the existing tier worse and charged you to restore it.

Legal jurisdiction
🇺🇸 United States (headquarters)
⚠CLOUD Act read more →
US govt can demand your data from this company even if stored overseas
⚠FISA §702 / PRISM read more →
NSA collects stored emails, photos, messages without individual warrants
●Geofence warrants read more →
Police can demand location data for everyone near a crime scene
Spying
0/4 N/A
Is someone spying on me?
Data Sharing
2/4 MODERATE
Who gets my data?
Kids at risk
Security
0/4 N/A
Is it actually secure?
Honesty
1/4 LOW
Can I trust what they say?
ACCEPTABLE Moderate concerns. Standard privacy hygiene applies.
3Contradictions
0Critical
3High
0Medium
3Sources
Findings by concern
Data Sharing 2/4 MODERATE 2 findings
⚡ highmarketing vs third party research
Watch a cooking show on Prime Video — Amazon recommends kitchen gadgets. Watch a documentary about anxiety — Amazon suggests supplements. Watch a pregnancy movie — baby products appear in your feed. Amazon is the only streaming service that can sell you what you just watched. Your viewing habits are a shopping signal, and Amazon connects every screen to your cart.

What they claim: Amazon Prime Video described as a premium streaming benefit of Prime membership

What we found: Amazon uniquely combines streaming viewing data with the most comprehensive consumer profile in existence: purchase history, Alexa voice commands, Ring doorbell footage, Whole Foods purchases, Kindle reading habits, and browsing history. Watching a documentary about insomnia on Prime Video can influence the sleep products recommended on Amazon.com. No other streaming service has this cross-domain data advantage.

⚡ highprivacy policy vs third party research
Amazon's ad business made $46.9 billion in 2023. Prime Video is now part of that machine. Unlike Google and Facebook, who guess what you want to buy, Amazon knows what you actually bought. Advertisers target you based on your real purchase history while you watch TV. The ads know what's in your cart. The most powerful ad targeting in history, playing between episodes.

What they claim: Amazon describes ad targeting as based on broad interests and content genre

What we found: Amazon's advertising division generated $46.9 billion in 2023, making it the third-largest digital ad platform after Google and Meta. Prime Video ads leverage Amazon's first-party purchase data — the most valuable ad targeting data in existence because it shows what people actually buy, not just what they click. Advertisers can target viewers based on real purchase behaviour.

Honesty 1/4 LOW 1 finding
⚡ highmarketing vs regulatory
You paid $139/year for Prime. That included ad-free streaming. Then Amazon added ads and charged you $2.99/month extra to remove them. 200 million people were downgraded overnight. The ad-free experience you paid for became a premium add-on. Amazon didn't add a cheaper tier — they made the existing tier worse and charged you to restore it.

What they claim: Amazon Prime Video was marketed as an ad-free streaming experience included with Prime

What we found: In January 2024, Amazon inserted ads into Prime Video by default, requiring an additional $2.99/month for ad-free viewing. 200 million Prime members who had been paying $139/year for ad-free streaming were switched to an ad-supported tier without opt-in consent. Existing subscribers had to pay more to keep what they already had.

What happened to real people
Documented incidents involving Amazon products and user data.
Ring employees spied on customers through bedroom and bathroom cameras. Hackers live-streamed customers' videos. 8-year-old girl contacted by hacker through bedroom camera. $5.8M FTC settlement. [source]
Amazon admitted giving Ring footage to police without owner consent at least 11 times in 2022. 30,000 employees had access to customer videos. [source]
What your data is worth to governments
Jurisdiction: US (CLOUD Act).
Documented: Ring employees spied on customers through bedroom and bathroom cameras. Hackers live-streamed customers' videos. 8-year-old girl contacted by hacker through bedroom camera. $5.8M FTC settlement.
Documented: Amazon admitted giving Ring footage to police without owner consent at least 11 times in 2022. 30,000 employees had access to customer videos.
What is the CLOUD Act?
Sources