Google settles with FTC over in-app charges
Source: AP-Excite
By MAE ANDERSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Google has agreed to pay full refunds totaling at least $19 million to consumers who were charged for purchases that children made via apps without parental consent from the Google Play app store.
The settlement is part of the third case by the Federal Trade Commission about unauthorized in-app purchases made my children. It settled with Apple for $32.5 million in January and it filed a complaint against Amazon, which has said it won't settle over the charges.
In Google's case, the FTC said that since 2011, consumers reported hundreds of dollars of unauthorized charges by children made within kids' apps downloaded from the Google Play store. The charges range from 99 cents to $200.
According to the FTC complaint, when Google first introduced in-app charges to the Google Play in 2011, they were not password protected. As a result, children could buy virtual items just by clicking on popup boxes within an app while they used it. In mid- to late-2012, Google instituted a pop-up box that asked for a password before a payment could be made but that opened up a 30-minute window during which a password wasn't required.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140904/us-google-ftc-settlement-a190243442.html
