Overview
- Amazon announced the change on Friday and said it is effective immediately, with continued use of its services counting as customer acceptance of the new terms.
- The new terms reinstate mandatory, binding arbitration for U.S. customers and add a class-action waiver that requires individual claims rather than court-led group suits.
- Amazon formally defines “mass arbitration” as 25 or more similar claims filed within six months and says those claims will be handled in batches of at least 25.
- The company said disputes begun before the update are exempt and that customers can still bring some cases to small-claims court, while Amazon described arbitration as a faster, lower-cost option.
- This shift follows a policy reversal five years ago after tens of thousands of individual arbitration filings, including roughly 75,000 Alexa-related claims in 2021, and it will keep most outcomes private because arbitration records and settlements typically are not public.