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U.S. Regulators Looking Into Kids' Overspending on In App Purchases

Smurf Village is certainly an easy trap. You have to enter your password to download the "free" game, then your kids have 15 minutes to spend real money on in-app purchases. This has never happened to me, but my son did buy an album on the iTunes store once. Parents should obviously disable one click purchasing on any computer that their kids use. And maybe they should wait 15 minutes before handing the phone over to their kids. In my experience Apple is very good about refunding money in situations like this, so I think most parents will be able to get a refund if their kid buys $99 worth of smurfberries. After this experience those parents should disable in-app purchases. In Capcom's defense, they have placed obvious warnings in the app store and in the app.

It would be nice if apple added "always require password for purchases" to the parental controls. Or a checkbox that says "keep me logged in for 15 mins" on the purchase window.

I think consumers, and Apple, should solve this "problem" without the aid of the government.
 
rdowns said:
Please let this serve as public notice of my intentions to bring to market, iParent, a revolutionary new app that allows even the laziest dumb asses to be good parents. Simply type in your parental situation into the app and buy your answer via an in-app purchase. :rolleyes:
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LMAO!!!!!!! When do you go public and where can I buy stock? :p
 
At some point, parents have to take responsibility here.

I would understand the government getting involved if there were no controls in place so this wouldn't happen. But this is ridiculous. Before handing a child a phone, computer, or remote control you should be aware of possible risks and be preactive about preventing them. It seems like it has become so easy now to just blame someone else.

I'm with everyone else...the government has better things to do.
 
TwoSocEmBoppers said:
This is appalling. I cannot believe this government intrusion is even legal.

So...where does parenting come into the picture here?! That is the problem with this and many, many other problems in society.

Edit: Posted my response without even reading other comments. Glad to see I'm not alone on this one.
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Wait. You live in The People's Republic of Massachusetts and you are astounded by this level of government nanny-ism?
 
The iParent is really LOL funny.
I have watched and seen children lose the concept of consequences for their actions.
Sadly it is sometimes the school that gives the kids the idea that they can do anything. Turn in your home work 2 days late and the teacher says OK.

When I was in school they would throw it away if it was late.

It seems that Congress wants to replace working brains with mindless laws.
I hope this doesn't happen. And yes I do write my Senator and Congressman to express my concerns.

Clint
 
The company also offers parental controls built into iOS that allow adults to completely disable in app purchasing, although many casual users may be unaware of the option's existence.
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RTFM. This is a personal issue and something that doesn't require government involvement. Why should Apple have to re-work the system to account for parents who raise greedy spoiled children?
 
It's like the extreme right wing has invaded this board. I'd expect at least one defense of government regulations here.
 
cmwade77 said:
Parents need to grow up and be just that....parents and not the kid's buddy, etc.

We do not need Government to step in here, Apple provides several ways for parents to control this:
  1. Do not give your kids your iTunes password
  2. Setup a unique iTunes account for each child
  3. Setup an allowance on each account
  4. Make sure that the account is link to a prepaid card that only has the allowance amount available on it, most banks offer these for free for your kids and you can automatically transfer funds to it each month, payday, etc. (Ok, this one is technically not Apple's method, but it still exists)
  5. Block in App Purchases using parental controls

Government needs to get involved in some things, for example making sure that companies are not monopolies.

They do not need to be involved in every aspect of our PERSONAL lives!

The job of Government is to:
  • Keep People Safe (Fire Fighters, Police, Paramedics, enact laws that handle this, etc.)
  • Ensure that interstate commerce is possible
  • Education
  • Handle International Travel Documentation and Immigration
That is all, we need to eliminate all of the other junk that Government does and let people govern themselves, get back to basic liberties that we have lost along the way.
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Sad to say that many parents are not tech savvy....

I can only wish that your list of what government should be in control of.... but sadly those that have the money or the loudest voices rule...

I fear these days of the "Republican Majority".... long gone are the days of seeking compromise - witness WI :(

In the end we are a country of the "people" - not the companies that payoff our politicians.....
 
I'm in two minds here: Firstly, I completely agree that parents should be responsible for their kids, and I don't feel that Apple are in any way culpable for this.

However, I do feel that some of the games publishers are acting in a particularly scummy way and are exploiting this "loophole" to make money from people who are failing to monitor their kids properly.

I was particularly surprised to see a respectable company such as Capcom involved with this shady business - having in-app purchases of up to £60 in a free game is exploitative and leaves a bad taste in the mouth
 
WestonHarvey1 said:
It's like the extreme right wing has invaded this board. I'd expect at least one defense of government regulations here.
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Don't get me wrong man, your entitled to your own opinion and I respect that, but in what way is it extreme to expect parents to be responsible for their children's actions and not extreme to have government step in and do the job that we're supposed to do ourselves? It amazes me how people, especially the younger generations, have been conditioned to believe that common sense, self reliance, and personal responsibility are far right or extreme thoughts. In my Fathers day that was the norm. Exactly when did we replace reason with trained responses and personal responsibility with government control?
 
Technology should help us.

Imagine if all smartphones had either a multi-user selector, or at the least a "child" mode that was easy to turn on.

Even if you're not a parent, many people have lent their smartphone to a niece or nephew, little brother or sister, to entertain them while on the road or at a restaurant. Heck, I keep one app folder just for my grandkids who are 2 or 3 years old.

Then you and they get frustrated because they hit a Home or Menu key, and you have to get them back into the app they were using.

It'd be great if we could quickly set a kid mode that locks them into a certain app or folder. For that matter, it'd be handy for when you loan your phone to a friend, spouse or boss :)
 
i thought you can just turn app purchases off in Parental controls (or does exclude in-app purchases?)

P.
 
What a colossal waste of Taxpayer money.

How about parents get off their lazy ass and actually parent vs shoving a gadget in their kids hands to baby sit em.

What a joke.
 
bossxii said:
What a colossal waste of Taxpayer money.

How about parents get off their lazy ass and actually parent vs shoving a gadget in their kids hands to baby sit em.

What a joke.
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What about regulations to protect the consumer from those that find loop holes to make big bucks....

Parents need to do their part, but government needs to try to protect from the greed that that brought us to the mess we are in today....
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
Parents need to do their part, but government needs to try to protect from the greed that that brought us to the mess we are in today....
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Oh sure, like the banks for example.... oh wait, the government actually gave them our tax money! :rolleyes:
 
Chip NoVaMac said:
What about regulations to protect the consumer from those that find loop holes to make big bucks....

Parents need to do their part, but government needs to try to protect from the greed that that brought us to the mess we are in today....
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Are we really comparing looking into in-app purchases with the crimes committed by Wall Street? Wow.

This is a 100% parental issue. As for Apple, the least they could do (and it might be there) is to post a video teaching parents to use parental controls.
 
Oooh... looks like we have the faux small-government types coming in! If you're worried about wasting of money, keep in mind that your government spends way more money on propaganda launched at you and empire-building than it does on the federal trade commission.

In addition, you might read up on this and see that this is really douchebag behavior we're talking about where a publisher has a "free" game for kids and then charges $100 multiple times for "smurfberries". That's pretty slimy behavior. The intention is to get a child who doesn't understand it's not play money to have their parents download the app and put in their password, then use the 15-minute window to rob the parents. The parents are thinking this is some harmless game until they get the bill.

I would call this bad parenting if it didn't involve trickery. Do you really expect a child to understand the difference between play money and real money?

I know, personal responsibility begins at 2, unless you're a CEO.

EDIT: maybe the moral of the story is kids shouldn't have iDevices or be allowed to use their parents'.
 
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objc said:
Oooh... looks like we have the faux small-government types coming in! If you're worried about wasting of money, keep in mind that your government spends way more money on propaganda launched at you and empire-building than it does on the federal trade commission.
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There's nothing "Faux" about me bub. I don't want to spend money on wars, empire building, bailing out banks, paying for ever expanding social programs, propaganda campaigns, the FTC, The FCC, The ATF, the whatever commission we'll implement this week to take care of a make believe problem, OR trying to regulate my app purchases because one of my kids might rack up a bill. I'll take care of my kids, money, and app purchases without government intervention ,thank you. How's that for Faux?
 
objc said:
In addition, you might read up on this and see that this is really douchebag behavior we're talking about where a publisher has a "free" game for kids and then charges $100 multiple times for "smurfberries". That's pretty slimy behavior. The intention is to get a child who doesn't understand it's not play money to have their parents download the app and put in their password, then use the 15-minute window to rob the parents. The parents are thinking this is some harmless game until they get the bill.

I would call this bad parenting if it didn't involve trickery. Do you really expect a child to understand the difference between play money and real money?
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It is douchebag behavior, no doubt about it. Why should it be a surprise that a company is trying to trick kids to spend their parents money. While it may be wrong, it's a parents responsibility to be an informed consumer and use the tools given to them to prevent such purchases. Mistakes happen, but does that mean we need the federal nannyment to step in every time something happens we don't like? How does that teach us anything? If you'd like uncle sam to wipe you a$$ that's your problem, or choice as they call it nowadays. But please don't force that "choice" on me because I can wipe my own just fine.


EDIT: maybe the moral of the story is kids shouldn't have iDevices or be allowed to use their parents'.
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I get the feeling we most likely don't agree on much politically, but this we can agree on.
 
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