Apple Tattled on Google to Draw FTC Attention to Similar Kids In-App Purchasing Issue

[SmoMo]

Some people have had bills in the thousands, which can easily happen even if you are watching a child like a hawk.

Yeh, and its easy to think that a Hawk is a good role model for parents who don't want their kids to buy too many IAPs. But turns out Hawks know pretty much nothing at all about IT and will just perch around on the back of the sofa all day while your kids spend all your money on stupid dragon eggs, or hay, or diamonds, or whatever.

Now if you want to make sure your kids are not eating mice, a Hawk type approach could be fantastic.

 

[FieldingMellish]

iShame.

 

[AlteMac]

Silly headline to use the pejorative "tattled". Apple competes head-on with Google, and they both should have to play by the same rules. All Apple did was say to the FTC, "don't treat us differently than you treat our competitors".
I would say this is Apple being smart, nothing else.

 

[mw360]

Utter rubbish. If your watching your child "like a hawk" and they still run up huge costs, then I would question the parenting skills.

Try it sometime. If you're watching the child, especially if you want to see their face, the screen is sometimes facing away from you. It takes seconds to run up a large bill with IAP and kid won't even switch from their happy game playing sing-song while they do it.

 

[vpndev]

yes and no

I think what Apple did was right considering the market share that Google holds. If I am correct, it is larger that Apple's, so therefore Google stood to profit more from the same thing the FTC was going after Apple for.

If by "Google's market share" you mean Android, then it is bigger. But that's not the case for App Store revenues, where Apple's is w-a-y bigger than Google'.

 

[ineedamac]

Try it sometime. If you're watching the child, especially if you want to see their face, the screen is sometimes facing away from you. It takes seconds to run up a large bill with IAP and kid won't even switch from their happy game playing sing-song while they do it.

Here is an idea we implemented. Provide an iTunes gift card for say $25.00. Tell the child once the $25.00 is gone then no more purchases. Then show them how to check the balance. If the child is old enough to use an iOS device then they are old enough to check the balance.

 

[Komrad808]

You make it sound like Apple took a look at themselves and said, ‘Hmmm we can be more responsible if we….it’s the right thing to do’.
I’m not sure they did. What I do think is that Apple reacted to massive global pressure from parents, users and orgs like the consumers association.
I love Apple products but the company is cut throat make no mistake.

"massive global pressure from parents" well if you put it like that. The flux capacitor Apple made about the molecules they created. They made a mistake and was paying to fix it. You think so?

 

[dru`]

Real classy Apple. If we're going down then we're taking you all with us mentality.

Um...really? In the United States we have this concept of equal justice under law. Punishing Apple alone for behavior their chief rival is also engaged in is unfair treatment and Apple has a right and obligation to its stakeholders to point this out to the gov't.

 

[kupkakez]

I think Apple did the right thing. They should all be investigated equally.

 

[69Mustang]

Um...really? In the United States we have this concept of equal justice under law. Punishing Apple alone for behavior their chief rival is also engaged in is unfair treatment and Apple has a right and obligation to its stakeholders to point this out to the gov't.

I would agree if the equal justice was applied to an equal act.
kdarling said it best:

The situations were not really the same at all.

iOS

1. Parent used password to install kid's app, handed device to kid.
2. Unbeknownst to the parent, in-app purchases were ALSO enabled for the next 15 minutes.
3. Child piled up hundreds of dollars in purchases, which Apple waited to aggregate and sometime later send in a receipt to the parent. (In my case, I continued to get receipts for several days after the 15 minutes was up.)

Android

1. Parent used password to install kid's app, handed device to kid.
2. Kid hits an in-app purchase. Parent has to enter password AGAIN.
3. Unless the parent had turned on a 30 minute timeout, the password was required for EACH in app purchase.
4. Unlike with Apple, each purchase immediately triggered a receipt email, so even if the password timeout was enabled, the parent stood a chance of knowing.

 

[BaldiMac]

The situations were not really the same at all.

iOS

1. Parent used password to install kid's app, handed device to kid.
2. Unbeknownst to the parent, in-app purchases were ALSO enabled for the next 15 minutes.
3. Child piled up hundreds of dollars in purchases, which Apple waited to aggregate and sometime later send in a receipt to the parent. (In my case, I continued to get receipts for several days after the 15 minutes was up.)

Android

1. Parent used password to install kid's app, handed device to kid.
2. Kid hits an in-app purchase. Parent has to enter password AGAIN.
3. Unless the parent had turned on a 30 minute timeout, the password was required for EACH in app purchase.
4. Unlike with Apple, each purchase immediately triggered a receipt email, so even if the password timeout was enabled, the parent stood a chance of knowing.

Any evidence the 30 minute window was turned off by default?

This article claims it is enabled by default.
http://www.androidauthority.com/google-in-app-game-355988/

 

[Neodym]

Aaaah - what relief to see the nice, blue, soothing, classy, skeuomorphic pre-iOS7 user interface again!

 

[firedept]

The App Store actually produces more profit for Apple than Google Play produces for Google, currently.

If by "Google's market share" you mean Android, then it is bigger. But that's not the case for App Store revenues, where Apple's is w-a-y bigger than Google'.

Thank you both for the info. I was not 100% sure. It is good to be informed.

 

[dec.]

They would have been exactly the same but with different usernames.

lol, nice.

 

[b11051973]

Could also be seen that Apple was trying to get out of the fine. Point out that others are doing the same thing and maybe the government would leave them alone.

 

[CelestialToys]

You know nothing about all of the individual circumstances in all the other families leading up to this. It doesn't matter what happened to you. Some people have had bills in the thousands, which can easily happen even if you are watching a child like a hawk. Some people have had bills run up by kids too young to reason with. Its not parenting skills at fault, its the perfectly reasonable lack of technological knowledge on the part of the parents. Remember barely anyone, perhaps possibly no-one outside of dedicated forums like this, knew about the 15 minute window.

Handing your child a device that you don't fully understand is not a "perfectly reasonable lack of technical knowledge" it's bad parenting.

 

[jonAppleSeed]

FTC blames Apple for people not supervising their children. Crotch-fruit entitlement much?

FTC blames Apple for the little known 15 minute window they allow after entering the password.

 

[entropys]

So to sum up, the market worked and the company (Apple) responded to consumer pressure.

But that was not good enough for the meddlers. So the government stepped in and demanded the same thing, but not equally from all suppliers. Clearly a political act.

The USA is just that little bit less the land of the free and a beacon of hope to others. These days the endless ratchet of government interference is making the place into a toilet. And I say that as someone wishing the best for the USA.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Fair and Equal Justice Under Law,
Perhaps,
Not so under regulation or politics.

 

[TrentS]

Yeah!!!

Bad parenting, I say. It shouldn't be up to Apple, Google, or the government to police this situation. If a parent or parents don't want their kids to purchase apps or in app purchases, then they should make sure their kids don't have access to their credit cards, credit card numbers, and they should adjust the device sttings accordingly, to prohibit kids doing this without their permission. And if the kid finds a way to do it anyways, they should make their kid pay for the cost of doing so. Tough love.

 

[iosuser]

Just a wild guess here, probably every $1 spent on Apple's app store, the equivalent of $50 is "downloaded" onto Android devices, therefore it would be less of an issue on Google's side

 

[sir1963nz]

It is just inconsistent of Tim. One minute he is dismissing Android as having negligible impact or value on the industry, and the next he is concerning himself with it as if Android is on par with iOS. Says one thing at conferences, behaves differently elsewhere.

No, its more like getting pulled over for speeding in a Porche and then complaining that the other guy who was ALSO speeding didn't because they were in a Nissan.

Nissan is having negligible effect on high end cars, however BOTH cars must obey the same speed limits.

----------

If by "Google's market share" you mean Android, then it is bigger. But that's not the case for App Store revenues, where Apple's is w-a-y bigger than Google'.

Who the hell cares, right is right and wrong is wrong. End of Story.

 

[69Mustang]

Any evidence the 30 minute window was turned off by default?

This article claims it is enabled by default.
http://www.androidauthority.com/google-in-app-game-355988/

Apropos of nothing, but my Play Store is set at password on every purchase. The option in order from top to bottom are:

Required password:

1. For all purchases through Google Play on this device
2. Every 30 minutes
3. Never

That being said, I can't say for sure which is the default. I don't remember making a change to those settings but that could be early onset dementia or one of the things I routinely do when getting a new device. I personalize.

If #1 isn't the default, it should be on all platforms.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Someone is paying the FTC.... if Apple was 'singled out' in all this.

Now this email gets leaked, and something tells me it wasn't someone on Apple's team.

FTC Shill: "Hey look, Apple emailed us back saying that other company's do the same thing, lets submit this to the press"

...and here we are shaming Apple.

 

[69Mustang]

No, its more like getting pulled over for speeding in a Porche and then complaining that the other guy who was ALSO speeding didn't because they were in a Nissan.

Nissan is having negligible effect on high end cars, however BOTH cars must obey the same speed limits.

One more bad car analogy for the Bad Car Analogy pile. We are a persistent group with our attempts and failures.

On topic: In the end if both stores provide basic protections against accidental purchases everybody wins.