Smartphonetechie
Do you remember that Apple had to pay $32 million to parents for in-app purchases that Children made without the permission of their parents? Well, we guess now it’s Amazon’s time to pay for the unauthorized in-app purchases by children. FTC has sued Amazon for all the in-app purchases that were by children without seeking permission from parents.
“Amazon’s in-app system allowed children to incur unlimited charges on their parents’ accounts without permission. Even Amazon’s own employees recognized the serious problem its process created. We are seeking refunds for affected parents and a court order to ensure that Amazon gets parents’ consent for in-app purchases.”-Edith Ramirez, FTC Chairwoman
So, all those applications which were downloaded on Amazon’s Kindle Fire and children made in-app purchases using Kindle Fire without taking permission from parents; Amazon will be bound to pay for all these purchases if in case it loses the case. According to FTC, even after multiple warnings Amazon failed to implement password protection for in-app purchases which allowed children to spend hefty amount on in-app purchases. However, Amazon defended itself by saying that “we included some efficient parental control features with real time transaction information.”
Though Amazon have policy that all purchases are final and non-refundable but FTC still insists that Amazon should refund all those purchases that were made without the permission of parents. For all in-app purchases Amazon keeps 30% of it. FTC gives an example of a Child who spends around $400 before his mom caught him.
FTC demands Amazon to take notice of all the complaints and refund people. Furthermore, Amazon should make its purchase policy a bit more lenient with improving its in-app purchase system by introducing password protection and some other features.
Will Amazon be asked to refnd just like Apple or Amazon will win this case? Anyways, tell us what do you think about it?
via: Online WSJ
