An Italian consumer advocacy group, Movimento Consumatori, has sued Netflix for raising prices… and won!
News coming out of the Court of Rome: Netflix has lost its case over price increases and now has to refund customers up to €500 each or €250 for those on the Standard plan. This stems from Netflix raising prices in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2024. Of course, Netflix has announced it will appeal this decision.
The core issue this consumer advocacy group sued Netflix over is that Netflix would notify customers 30 days in advance and give them the right to cancel. But the court says that wasn’t enough. The court believes that consumers needed to know upfront what specific reasons could justify a future price increase, and that framework was missing.
On the flip side, the court noted that Netflix had changed its terms of use in April 2025, which are now compliant with Italy’s Consumer Code, as they are now tied to specific causes such as service changes, regulatory requirements, and technology updates.
This is a significant ruling in the world of streaming
As you might expect, this is a pretty significant ruling in Italy, for a number of reasons. It challenges the way essentially every streaming service operates, including Disney+, Hulu, and Peacock. Netflix and others have historically raised prices whenever they wanted, just by announcing it and sometimes sending out emails to everyone. Now, they need to tell consumers, upfront in the contract, what reasons they may have for raising prices.
This also sets a precedent across Europe; the EU already has a pretty strong stance on consumer protection. And if this moves to the EU, that could spell danger for Netflix and the rest of the streaming industry.
Finally, this puts Netflix in a pretty tough spot financially. In Italy alone, Netflix has about 5.4 million subscribers. If a significant chunk of those subscribers is entitled to these refunds ranging from €250 to €500, that is a big chunk of change. Let’s do the math real quick, assuming Netflix has about 3 million customers that are entitled to the smaller amount, that’s still €750 million that Netflix would need to refund.
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