Amazon will soon fork out up to $70 million to parents whose kids bought in-app purchases without their consent. Although the apps themselves might be free, young players can then easily buy tokens, upgrades, and other goodies for a better gameplay without their parents' permission. After a year of battling it out, the FTC and Amazon agreed yesterday to drop their appeals, and Amazon will soon start the refund process.
According to TechCrunch:
The FTC's original complaint said that Amazon should be liable for millions of dollars it charged customers, because of the way its Appstore software was designed – that is, it allowed kids to spend unlimited amounts of money in games and other apps without requiring parental consent.
The FTC had previously settled with both Apple and Google on similar charges, before turning its sights to Amazon.
The issue had to do with the way the Amazon Appstore's in-app purchasing system worked. The Amazon Appstore is the store that comes preloaded on Amazon mobile devices, like Kindle Fire tablets, for example, though there is a way to load it onto other Android devices, too.
Of course, many kids' game developers notoriously try to blur the lines between what's free and paid. They also often design games in a way that they only fully function when kids use in-game items, which can be sometimes earned through gameplay or other times purchased through the app itself. Kids are pushed to buy these things regularly – as any parent can tell you, having experienced their kids' begging for these items.
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