Bad Amazon! Children enabled to make in-app purchases without parental knowledge.
Amazon really did it this time. The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against the online retailer, citing how unsupervised access to apps on Amazon devices leads to purchases without their parents consent, or knowledge.
Transactions ranging anywhere from 99 cents up to 100 dollars have been reported by parents of children with access to devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire.
While on most Android devices, in-app purchases require the owner of the account to enter a password, unless manually set by the owner to bypass such countermeasure, such has not been the case for the children of thousands of angry users who discovered hefty charges on their bank accounts and credit cards.
The FTC contends that making purchases from within an app, or while playing a game did not even require children to be able to read, in order to accumulate purchases on their parents accounts. In several cases, children were not even aware of the fact they were purchasing something.
In January of this year, Apple was struck with a similar lawsuit, which forced the company to pay 32.5 million dollars in damages to iOS users.
The lawsuit brought against Amazon will not only require the online retailer to refund parents, but also to modify its in-app shopping platform, in such way as to require informed consent from the parents of children with access to Amazon devices.
The FTC goes on further, contending that Amazon was fully aware of the issues, since the company started enabling in-app purchases in 2011. Only a month ago did the company implement a password prompt in order to allow users to make purchases.
30% of Amazon’s profits is derived from in-app purchases, a fact that puts the company in a very awkward position with consumers and the FTC.
The FTC is notoriously vigilant when it comes to consumer consent, cracking down on companies at the center of scandals involving hidden charges on their bills, such as AT&T, Verizon and, as of late, T-Mobile.
Amazon did not issue comments on the lawsuit, but a letter was released to the FTC in the wake of the impending suit, describing the lawsuit “deeply disappointing”. Amazon vice-president Andrew DaVore wrote in his letter to the FTC, of Amazon’s commitment to constantly improving customer experience, issuing prompt refunds to those users whose charges were found to be unauthorized or processed by mistake.