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The European Commission (EC) has been working with national authorities and app store owners to address concerns over in-app purchases, especially where those transactions are undertaken by children.
Europe’s Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, in association with consumer protection bodies in its member states, asked Google, Apple and the Interactive Software Federation of Europe to ensure that:
- Games advertised as “free” do not mislead consumers about the true costs involved.
- Games do not directly encourage children to buy items in a game or to persuade an adult to buy items for them.
- Consumers are adequately informed about the payment arrangements for purchases, and do not have money taken through default settings without giving their explicit consent.
- Traders provide an email address so that consumers can contact them in case of queries or complaints.
According to a statement released by the EC, Google’s response has been positive, with the company saying it will make a number of changes by the end of September 2014. These changes will include:
Not using the word "free" at all when games contain in-app purchases, developing targeted guidelines for its app developers to prevent direct exhortation to children as defined under EU law and time-framed measures to help monitor apparent breaches of EU consumer laws. It has also adapted its default settings, so that payments are authorised prior to every in-app purchase, unless the consumer actively chooses to modify these settings.
Apple, however, while agreeing to address the EC’s concerns, hasn’t offered a firm commitment or offered any proposals on timing for potential future changes. From the statement:
CPC authorities will continue to engage with Apple to ensure that it provides specific details of changes required and put its practices into line with the common position.
Apple responded via a statement in which it said it was doing “more than others” to protect parents, adding that its controls “go far beyond the features of others in the industry.” The company also suggested that the required changes may coincide with the release of its new iOS operating system:
We are always working to strengthen the protections we have in place, and we're adding great new features with iOS 8, such as Ask to Buy, giving parents even more control over what their kids can buy on the App Store.
In January, however, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) saw things rather differently – a situation that ended when Apple agreed to hand over $32.5m to settle a complaint “that the company billed consumers for millions of dollars of charges incurred by children in kids’ mobile apps without their parents’ consent.”
In a Chet Chat podcast that we recorded at the time, our own Paul Ducklin agreed with the FTC decision but suggested that parents also need to assume a degree of responsibility:
Clearly, many parents have been in a position that their children have spent money either that they didn't expect or more than they intended - to the point that the FTC has intervened.
Now, if that's happening on this sort of scale, you can imagine how many accidents are happening with children who are messing around with iPads also used for work: sending tweets by mistake; deleting emails; accidentally locking things so that they can't be used later.
If you've got an iPad that you use for work purposes, then you need to be very cautious about handing it over to your kids so they can play a game - whether or not you intend to allow them to make in-app purchases.
So, while the action from the European Commission is welcome, it really should work in tandem with parents monitoring and educating their children in their use of technology.
In-app purchases can be costly but let us not forget that kids can face other, more serious dangers online – so make sure you know what your children are doing and what (and who) they are interacting with.
Image of app shopping cart courtesy of Shutterstock.
I’m all for clarity, but it makes me sad when parents place the blame solely on app developers/store owners when their kid racks up $800 of microtransactions because they weren’t monitoring their child.
At least the $800 is the parents’ own money. (Or debt, if the transactions were against a credit card.)
What about other “unexpected things” that their unsupervised children might get up to while left to be “entertained” by the iPhone, perhaps involving other people’s information? Things like bogus tweets, forwarded emails, Facebook privacy changes, and more.
Most iPhones, on account of the sort of information entrusted to them, simply aren’t toys, no matter how good they might be at entertainment.
It too bad when we have to legislate what ‘free’ means, but this kind of abuse may make that kind of legislation a requirement. Of course you can’t always blame the child, but the app designer needs to make sure who’s ‘buying’ the extensions or make them where the adult has to do themselves. Just like the child that purchase a car on one of the lists that he ended up purchasing, if you let them, you pay. Designing an app for children use, should not have any way for them to purchase items.
Apple, makes you have a credit card on file to get ‘free’ apps, why, I have no idea, but if I had kids they wouldn’t be getting free apps from Apple (itunes).. Seems like the logic is simple “If it’s free, let them have it, else get a credit card”. What’s so tough about that?
However, how many times have you seen web sites advertise “free” and how many times is it really “free”? I know on some adult sites, you pay a buck to do a ‘trial’ but if you click on anything, you’re in for the 29.95 or whatever, without any acknowledgement as to what you have done. Or the ones that show you hard core, then say, we need a credit card to ensure you are old enough! Who are they trying to kid, and who do they sell the card numbers to?? The public will wise up that the ‘free’ information you give them is making them money, why else would they want it?
We will see legislation of what free means in our lifetime. The way it’s abused irritates virtually all of us! Along with site that claim “Free Download” where it won’t do anything without you paying for it but you can put it on your computer for free and let it sit there…
I’m approaching 60, and I remember when the Internet was all numbers (IP’s) for getting around, then came DNS, then came the people making money, that’s when all of the free stuff was disappeared!
Duck wrote “If you’ve got an iPad that you use for work purposes, then you need to be very cautious about handing it over to your kids so they can play a game – whether or not you intend to allow them to make in-app purchases.”
At the large computer company from which I just retired, letting anyone (including family members) use a computer, tablet, or phone which you use for work is a termination act.