In the six-year time frame established in the settlement, anyone who “unsuccessfully attempted” to cancel their Prime subscription online is eligible to get paid up to $51 from Amazon. People who signed up for Prime during that same period can also get up to $51 if they signed up through a “challenged enrollment flow”—a page with a confusing interface that may lead to people inadvertently making a purchase. Previous court filings established that in some cases, some users may have selected “two-day shipping” on an item and not realized that, in doing so, they were also signing up for Amazon Prime.
An FTC spokesperson tells WIRED that automatic payments will go out to some customers within 90 days.
“The rest of eligible consumers will receive a notification from Amazon, and will have the opportunity to submit a simple claim form,” the FTC says. “Amazon is required to post information about this to Amazon.com and the app. The settlement also requires Amazon to have an independent third party who will monitor their compliance with these claims.”
The court filing says that Amazon is also “permanently” barred from structuring Prime sign-ups with a confusing “negative option feature” where a customer is assumed to be making a purchase unless they actively refuse it.
For example, the filing says, a button that reads “No thanks, I don’t want free shipping” does not clearly indicate that a customer will be signed up for Prime unless they click it. Amazon also has to make it obvious when a person is choosing to sign up for Prime, and include language like “Join Prime” in its user interface. Similarly, Amazon has to clearly communicate when a Prime subscription is subject to auto-renewals by using words like “renew.”
The initial complaint, which was filed by the FTC in June 2023, alleged that while Amazon had improved its process for canceling Prime memberships, the company had spent years knowingly complicating the cancellation process.
An attachment on a May 7 court filing includes an email chain with Amazon employees from December 2020, which was described as “privileged and confidential” in the subject line. In the email, a manager of Prime content and marketing paraphrased key points that came up in a recent “US prime performance meeting.”
“Subscription is driving a bit of a shady world,” reads one paraphrased quote, attributed to an unnamed person at the meeting.
“We should lean away from experimenting with sign-up clarity, and focus more on driving overall members and increasing confirmation that you are prime,” reads a different paraphrased quote from another person at the meeting, included in the same attachment.
A different attachment shows that Amazon was aware that customers were frustrated. A company slide presentation dated September 17, 2017, focused specifically on customer service complaints about “unintentional” Prime sign-ups. (A different attachment, which includes an email chain dated September 25, 2017, appears to refer to the presentation. Two dozen people were asked to “delete the PowerPoint document” and send “confirmation” once they had.)
One customer complaint in the presentation claims that they were “tricked” into signing up for a free trial for Amazon Prime when they selected two-day shipping on a purchase, not knowing that this would also sign them up for a trial for Prime.
“I DO NOT LIKE YOUR SERVICE,” reads another complaint. “THIS IS CRAP THAT I ORDERED A PRODUCT IN AMAZON ADS [sic] ME TO A PROGRAM WITH AUTO BILLING THAT I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR. I WILL NOT USE AMAZON AND TELL EVERYONE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF CRAP YOU ARE PULLING.”
“IT IS SNEAKY AND BLOODY DISHONEST FORCING SOMETHING THE [sic] I NEVER WANTED,” reads another complaint.
The same Amazon slide presentation noted that confusing Prime sign-ups were leading to an increased burden on Amazon’s customer service workers, as well as a “loss of customer trust.”
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![Ford’s new electric truck, ‘Fathom’, starts at ,350 | TechCrunch
Ford’s next-generation electric truck will be called Fathom, and it will start at ,350 when it goes on sale in 2027, the company said on Thursday.
A “destination and delivery” fee will bring that price up to ,945, putting the Fathom just below the ,000 mark that Ford has targeted since it first started talking more openly about the project in 2025.
The truck, when it arrives next year, represents a major bet for Ford. It’s the automaker’s second all-electric truck after the F-150 Lightning (third, if you count the limited-run Ranger EV from the late 1990s). But like many of its peers, the company has dramatically pulled back on its once-ambitious plans to build electric vehicles.
The Fathom is the first vehicle Ford is building on its new “Universal EV Platform,” or UEV, which will power a number of different EVs and involves a brand-new assembly line process meant to cut costs. It’s an attempt by CEO Jim Farley to try and catch up to category leader Tesla, as well as the many Chinese EVs that he’s argued against allowing into the U.S. market — all while building the truck in Louisville, Kentucky.
Deliveries begin in “fall 2027,” and Ford said on Thursday that it won’t reveal the truck until “early 2027,” which is when it will start taking pre-orders.
We do have some details, though. Ford has already said the Fathom will have Apple Maps built into its operating system, and on Thursday, the company said the truck will support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Notably, it will not support Apple’s next-generation CarPlay Ultra.
The Fathom will have five seats, which is more interior space than a Toyota Rav4; a “large, high-resolution touch screen,” and a “digital car key.” It will be capable of bidirectional power, much like the Lightning and the hybrid F-150.
Every Fathom will also be “BlueCruise-capable,” meaning it will come with the tech integrated, but buyers will likely have to pay extra to enable Ford’s hands-free advanced driver assistance system. The truck is supposed to have a newer, more powerful version of BlueCruise that Ford says will eventually be capable of handling supervised driving from starting point to destination. Eyes-off driving is expected in 2028.
The Fathom’s starting price also only includes the “standard range” lithium iron phosphate battery pack. Ford hasn’t yet said how many miles the truck can drive on a single charge.
Ford said the name represents “a deep understanding of the person who would drive” the truck, and how their “motivations look a little different from the traditional truck customer’s.”
“[T]he name had to do more than sound good. It had to capture a mindset, shifting the focus from specs to a spirit of adaptability,” the company wrote.
Electric trucks have not done terribly well in the U.S.. The Lightning only moved a little more than 10,000 units in its best quarter, and though Tesla’s Cybertruck had a higher peak, it has since crashed out.
Ford is gambling by choosing the truck form factor for its first UEV platform vehicle. But there are some inherent upsides: The Fathom and other vehicles built on the platform will be the first that Ford has designed from the ground up to use electric powertrains. That should mean fewer tradeoffs on range, efficiency, and overall packaging of the vehicle.
Both the Fathom and UEV have been in the works for a few years. It started as a skunkworks project that Farley tasked former Tesla exec Alan Clarke with leading, as TechCrunch first reported in 2024. The team is flush with talent from Rivian, Tesla and Apple’s now-defunct car project, and has purportedly been working in isolation in Los Angeles, separated from the bureaucracy of the rest of the company.
All of this likely contributed to getting the Fathom’s starting price to just under ,000, a major accomplishment in a market where the average new car costs ,000. The truck won’t have a lot of competition in that range — it’s essentially going up against just the spartan, Jeff Bezos-backed Slate pickup, and a few non-truck EVs like the Chevy Bolt.
Ford has found a ton of success with its small, low-cost Maverick pickup, which comes in both internal combustion and hybrid powertrain variants. The Fathom is an attempt to bottle that lightning, without going the way of the Lightning.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Fords #electric #truck #Fathom #starts #TechCrunchelectric trucks,EVs,Ford](https://i0.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Ford-Fathom-Hero-Still-16x9_v2.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1 "Ford’s new electric truck, ‘Fathom’, starts at ,350 | TechCrunch
Ford’s next-generation electric truck will be called Fathom, and it will start at ,350 when it goes on sale in 2027, the company said on Thursday.
A “destination and delivery” fee will bring that price up to ,945, putting the Fathom just below the ,000 mark that Ford has targeted since it first started talking more openly about the project in 2025.
The truck, when it arrives next year, represents a major bet for Ford. It’s the automaker’s second all-electric truck after the F-150 Lightning (third, if you count the limited-run Ranger EV from the late 1990s). But like many of its peers, the company has dramatically pulled back on its once-ambitious plans to build electric vehicles.
The Fathom is the first vehicle Ford is building on its new “Universal EV Platform,” or UEV, which will power a number of different EVs and involves a brand-new assembly line process meant to cut costs. It’s an attempt by CEO Jim Farley to try and catch up to category leader Tesla, as well as the many Chinese EVs that he’s argued against allowing into the U.S. market — all while building the truck in Louisville, Kentucky.
Deliveries begin in “fall 2027,” and Ford said on Thursday that it won’t reveal the truck until “early 2027,” which is when it will start taking pre-orders.
We do have some details, though. Ford has already said the Fathom will have Apple Maps built into its operating system, and on Thursday, the company said the truck will support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Notably, it will not support Apple’s next-generation CarPlay Ultra.
The Fathom will have five seats, which is more interior space than a Toyota Rav4; a “large, high-resolution touch screen,” and a “digital car key.” It will be capable of bidirectional power, much like the Lightning and the hybrid F-150.
Every Fathom will also be “BlueCruise-capable,” meaning it will come with the tech integrated, but buyers will likely have to pay extra to enable Ford’s hands-free advanced driver assistance system. The truck is supposed to have a newer, more powerful version of BlueCruise that Ford says will eventually be capable of handling supervised driving from starting point to destination. Eyes-off driving is expected in 2028.
The Fathom’s starting price also only includes the “standard range” lithium iron phosphate battery pack. Ford hasn’t yet said how many miles the truck can drive on a single charge.
Ford said the name represents “a deep understanding of the person who would drive” the truck, and how their “motivations look a little different from the traditional truck customer’s.”
“[T]he name had to do more than sound good. It had to capture a mindset, shifting the focus from specs to a spirit of adaptability,” the company wrote.
Electric trucks have not done terribly well in the U.S.. The Lightning only moved a little more than 10,000 units in its best quarter, and though Tesla’s Cybertruck had a higher peak, it has since crashed out.
Ford is gambling by choosing the truck form factor for its first UEV platform vehicle. But there are some inherent upsides: The Fathom and other vehicles built on the platform will be the first that Ford has designed from the ground up to use electric powertrains. That should mean fewer tradeoffs on range, efficiency, and overall packaging of the vehicle.
Both the Fathom and UEV have been in the works for a few years. It started as a skunkworks project that Farley tasked former Tesla exec Alan Clarke with leading, as TechCrunch first reported in 2024. The team is flush with talent from Rivian, Tesla and Apple’s now-defunct car project, and has purportedly been working in isolation in Los Angeles, separated from the bureaucracy of the rest of the company.
All of this likely contributed to getting the Fathom’s starting price to just under ,000, a major accomplishment in a market where the average new car costs ,000. The truck won’t have a lot of competition in that range — it’s essentially going up against just the spartan, Jeff Bezos-backed Slate pickup, and a few non-truck EVs like the Chevy Bolt.
Ford has found a ton of success with its small, low-cost Maverick pickup, which comes in both internal combustion and hybrid powertrain variants. The Fathom is an attempt to bottle that lightning, without going the way of the Lightning.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Fords #electric #truck #Fathom #starts #TechCrunchelectric trucks,EVs,Ford")
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