Apple Agrees to FTC Terms Over In-App Purchases With $32 Million Settlement

[Serelus]

Murica,

Wow, I cannot for the life of me understand these kinds situations.

Why can americans always avoid responsibility by simply sueing, it's ridiculous.
Tell your kids what they can and cannot do, if they do it anyway suck up the bill for putting your fate in them, and remove their iPhone/iPad priviliges for god sakes. Maybe you shouldn't let your 9 to 15 year olds play with you iPhone or iPad how about that?

 

[DipDog3]

Fun Fact: FTC Chairwoman Ramirez worked for the law firm that leaked information during the Samsung trial and spread confidential contract information between Nokia and Apple and others to Samsung's top brass so it could be used when negotiating when Samsung negotiated with Nokia.

 

[zipa]

While they are at it, ban ads from children's games. A kid can't tell the difference between an ad and a game element. Smells highly unethical to me.

 

[Rocketman]

Well then they would have to go after walmart too for selling iphones below cost.

Wal-Mart discounts from retail, but does not sell below cost. Cost after considering retail margin and subsidies is about -40%. Just like most retail products in this world.

 

[DipDog3]

I don't see how this should be a big deal for Apple. If they give refunds, they will just take that money out of the developer's account. It is the developers that will suffer more than anyone.

 

[Bare]

I'm as against this culture of giving irresponsible people (children) these powerful, expensive devices and letting them use them unsupervised as anyone else.

However, I see the issue at hand. A parent can input a password to download an app, then hand the device to someone else who doesn't know the password but who can then make purchases without having to input a password to authorize the purchases. That's something that Apple should fix, or at least, as this settlement requires, warn users that this is possible for 15 minutes after inputting a password to download an app.

Still, the majority of the irresponsibility and liability lies with the parents.

 

[seamer]

This internal memo seems decidedly aimed towards public consumption to generate anti-FTC sentiment.

 

[Bare]

Murica,

Wow, I cannot for the life of me understand these kinds situations.

Why can americans always avoid responsibility by simply sueing, it's ridiculous.
Tell your kids what they can and cannot do, if they do it anyway suck up the bill for putting your fate in them, and remove their iPhone/iPad priviliges for god sakes. Maybe you shouldn't let your 9 to 15 year olds play with you iPhone or iPad how about that?

I'm reminded of when I was younger and we had dial-up Internet. My dad told me I could only use phone numbers in our area to connect because he didn't want to pay long-distance charges for what would likely be hours of Internet usage. However, there were phone numbers with the same area code as our area and our own phone number that were still technically "long distance" according to the phone company.

He was very upset with me, and maybe he called the phone company about it, but there were no lawsuits, and I'm sure the most the phone company did was give him a discount, if they helped us out with it, at all.

 

[sir1963nz]

Much easier to sue a company with deep pockets.

Nah, someone is looking to run for public office and is setting up a name for themselves for playing hardball. Its all about someones political aspirations and they are using Apple to prove themselves to others

 

[mattopotamus]

Why? This is the parents responsibility. How many more flags will Apple be forced to place before the experience of using the Apps becomes frustrating. What about the competitors in-app store? Where is the FTC for those companies? Hello???

Do you not think it is silly that if I download a game for my child I have to wait 15 minutes before they can play it for fear they will buy in-game perks?

The solution is to add profiles! Android has this on the nexus tablets....I just choose what they can and cannot have access too. Why profiles do not exist on apple tablets...

I download a game on the nexus tablet on my profile and then on the "childs" profile I enable that game. They have zero access to the play store or anything where they can accidentally make purchases.

 

[PlayRadioPlay]

Great. Now the rest of us have to be inconvenienced because parents are too lazy to monitor their snot-nosed kids.

 

[giantfan1224]

Great. Now the rest of us have to be inconvenienced because parents are too lazy to monitor their snot-nosed kids.

Do you have kids?

 

[kdarling]

So are they going after Google now too??? They should shouldn't they? I would think Android apps are guilty of the same thing.

If you set up a purchase password in Android's Play Store, I think it is asked for every time.

iOS allowed any number of purchases for 15 minutes after you had entered your password to install the app.

So what was happening, was that the parents would think they were doing the right thing by needing a password to install an app. Then they would hand the iPad over, thinking everything was safe.

They had no idea that no password was necessary for purchases for another quarter hour. In that time, a child (or for that matter, your best college buddy) could easily purchase hundreds of dollars of imaginary coins, fish, clowns or whatever.

(Never mind the fact that there should be a law against $100 in-app purchases in games targeted at young children in the first place.)

 

[576316]

Parents should be more involved with their kids and know what they are giving them access to on devices.

Exactly. Apple shouldn't be made to cover up bad parenting.

 

[Menel]

Kids can buy itunes giftcards with what's left of their allowance or yardwork monies if they really want.

 

[576316]

If you set up a purchase password in Android's Play Store, I think it is asked for every time.

iOS allowed any number of purchases for 15 minutes after you had entered your password to install the app.

So what was happening, was that the parents would think they were doing the right thing by needing a password to install an app. Then they would hand the iPad over, thinking everything was safe.

They had no idea that no password was necessary for purchases for another quarter hour. In that time, a child (or for that matter, your best college buddy) could easily purchase hundreds of dollars of imaginary coins, fish, clowns or whatever.

(Never mind the fact that there should be a law against $100 in-app purchases in games targeted at young children in the first place.)

I hadn't thought of it that way, that's a real flaw and something Apple should look into. Even if it just means having a switch on your account or in settings which makes the App Store require a password for every purchase.

 

[Menel]

This internal memo seems decidedly aimed towards public consumption to generate anti-FTC sentiment.

All corporations send CEO send propaganda memo's out to employees with happy yay positive spin, we are never evil, you love us, our customers love us, the world loves us, etc. Gotta keep morale high.

----------

If you set up a purchase password in Android's Play Store, I think it is asked for every time.

iOS allowed any number of purchases for 15 minutes after you had entered your password to install the app.

So what was happening, was that the parents would think they were doing the right thing by needing a password to install an app. Then they would hand the iPad over, thinking everything was safe.

They had no idea that no password was necessary for purchases for another quarter hour. In that time, a child (or for that matter, your best college buddy) could easily purchase hundreds of dollars of imaginary coins, fish, clowns or whatever.

(Never mind the fact that there should be a law against $100 in-app purchases in games targeted at young children in the first place.)

View attachment 456571

Tell that to Lego (etc etc) who sells many $100+ toys targeted at young children.

 

[Said1985]

Totally misleading

sure

 

[Menel]

I'm reminded of when I was younger and we had dial-up Internet. My dad told me I could only use phone numbers in our area to connect because he didn't want to pay long-distance charges for what would likely be hours of Internet usage. However, there were phone numbers with the same area code as our area and our own phone number that were still technically "long distance" according to the phone company.

He was very upset with me, and maybe he called the phone company about it, but there were no lawsuits, and I'm sure the most the phone company did was give him a discount, if they helped us out with it, at all.

Area codes can span entire states. Back when I was a kid, calling family an hour drive south, was 'long distance'.

 

[GoodWatch]

Somewhere I blame android for this IAP ****... The piracy on android gave birth to this model...

Really? Please explain.

 

[fredaroony]

Wow, what a self righteous long winded letter!

I especially like this part "who are also committed to upholding the highest moral, legal and ethical standards in everything we do."

He is committed except when they aren't price fixing e-books or not adhering to warranty laws in other countries. Other than that, they are all saints at Apple!

 

[samcraig]

[/COLOR]Tell that to Lego (etc etc) who sells many $100+ toys targeted at young children.

There's a difference between a physical toy in a physical store and an in-app purchase. Do you really not see a difference?

Exactly. Apple shouldn't be made to cover up bad parenting.

This has nothing or very little to do with bad parenting and everything to do with default settings.

 

[ericinboston]

1)Apple HAS NOT PAID the parents yet...Tim's letter states "In all, we received 37,000 claims and we will be reimbursing each one as promised. " Mind you that these mailings/alerts to parents went out LAST YEAR...probably not 12/31/2013 but I bet much earlier....so why has Apple not paid yet? Hmmmmm.

2)Even if the 37,000 people were due back $10 each, that would only be $370,000...much, much smaller than Apple's settlement of 100x that amount!


It's no wonder Apple got sued...Apple took their sweet *** time paying back the parents and likely the payments would have been so insignificant to Apple ($370k) that Apple wouldn't have learned its lesson.

There's a reason why Apple "settled" for $32million folks...and that letter does not describe the real reason....which is likely that Apple violated a bunch of laws, were going to easily be found guilty, and hence be penalized boatloads of fines worth far more than $32mill and obviously far more than $370k.

I'm not saying Apple is evil but it should be fined/penalized like ANY OTHER company in the USA that breaks the law. Period. Maybe if Apple had electronically refunded people within 72 hours (rather than months/years), the government would not have pursued the lawsuit.

 

[Jollins]

Murica,

Wow, I cannot for the life of me understand these kinds situations.

Why can americans always avoid responsibility by simply sueing, it's ridiculous.
Tell your kids what they can and cannot do, if they do it anyway suck up the bill for putting your fate in them, and remove their iPhone/iPad priviliges for god sakes. Maybe you shouldn't let your 9 to 15 year olds play with you iPhone or iPad how about that?

Nice job being a stereotypical condescending european.

Also, I feel this is a completely legitimate case, and Apple is guilty of enabling this. Many popular Free-to-play games such as Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga are 100% intentionally designed to manipulate human addictive personalities. I used to work in that industry and was encouraged to design these elements myself (we used terms such as "infinite money sink" when looking for ways where your money would provide only temporary goods).

It's disgusting, one of the worst things to happen in the games industry, and I hope all game development studios involved in that industry go under or exit that market.

 

[giantfan1224]

1)Apple HAS NOT PAID the parents yet...Tim's letter states "In all, we received 37,000 claims and we will be reimbursing each one as promised. " Mind you that these mailings/alerts to parents went out LAST YEAR...probably not 12/31/2013 but I bet much earlier....so why has Apple not paid yet? Hmmmmm.

2)Even if the 37,000 people were due back $10 each, that would only be $370,000...much, much smaller than Apple's settlement of 100x that amount!


It's no wonder Apple got sued...Apple took their sweet *** time paying back the parents and likely the payments would have been so insignificant to Apple ($370k) that Apple wouldn't have learned its lesson.

There's a reason why Apple "settled" for $32million folks...and that letter does not describe the real reason....which is likely that Apple violated a bunch of laws, were going to easily be found guilty, and hence be penalized boatloads of fines worth far more than $32mill and obviously far more than $370k.

I'm not saying Apple is evil but it should be fined/penalized like ANY OTHER company in the USA that breaks the law. Period. Maybe if Apple had electronically refunded people within 72 hours (rather than months/years), the government would not have pursued the lawsuit.

Source? Or are you just going off your gut?