Epic Games to pay $520 million fine for privacy violations and manipulation
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Today, December 19, video game developer Epic Games has reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) US for $520 million to settle two investigations by the regulator.
The company will pay a record $275 million fine in such a case for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act for collecting personal information about children and teenagers playing its games without obtaining verifiable parental approval. The company agreed to change a number of rules and settings, including disabling the ability to text and voice chat in real time for underage users.
In addition, Epic Games will pay $245 million in compensation to users who accused it of manipulative tactics that forced gamers to unplanned spending in games. We are talking, for example, about such an arrangement of buttons, in which the user, trying to look at something in the game, accidentally makes a purchase.
Another option is in-app purchases made by children that do not require parental consent. The FTC also notes that Epic Games blocked the accounts of users who attempted to dispute payments made in this way, and also hid the purchase cancellation features so that they were very difficult to find. According to the regulator, in total, the company received more than a million complaints about such actions.
Last week a Canadian court accepted to consider the lawsuit of parents against Epic Games – they accused the company that their children develop an addiction to the game Fortnite developed by it, because of which children almost stop eating, sleeping and washing.
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