Apple to Pay $100 Million For Unauthorized App Purchases

[MikeWehner]

Apple to Pay $100 Million For Unauthorized App Purchases

Kids are off the hook as Apple reimburses parents.

Apple has agreed to pay out as much as $100 million to customers involved in a class action lawsuit regarding in-app purchases made by minors. The suit alleges that the company's in-app purchasing restrictions were lax enough that youngsters were able to purchase game credits and other virtual items without their parents authorization.

Currently, in-app purchases from the App Store require users to re-enter their account password before paying, but that wasn't always the case. Older versions of Apple's iOS mobile operating system allowed users to authorize a download from the app store and then make authorization-free purchases for the following 15 minutes as a means of convenience. This led to children racking up dozens and dozens of purchases without their elders' knowledge.

According to the settlement, Apple will notify as many as 23 million customers who are eligible for the settlement, and credits will be applied to their accounts. For those claiming over $30 worth of reimbursement, cash refunds will be made available.

Source: Reuters [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/26/us-apple-lawsuit-idUSBRE91P05O20130226]

Permalink

 

[Legion]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

 

[Negatempest]

Well, you kinda have to also realize that quite of few of these Apple Store games are easy to use, colorful, cheery, bubbly and totally designed to drain every last cent you have. Let me put it this way if a kid could use an atm, using their parent's card that they see them use alot, without entering a password. They would use all that money on junk food. And in that case, it's the parents fault? Heck, I have a pretty fat wallet and may not be able to tell I have my card in my wallet until it's too late.

 

[Chrono212]

Aren't some games specifically designed around 'pay-to-win' in app purchases?

And that these games are specifically targeted at children?

I'm just saying that there's no corporate responsibility because Apple says it's up to the developers/publishers who then say it's Apple's job to verify their design decisions.

 

[Dogstile]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

An iphone shouldn't be a dangerous tool to let your kids play on without constantly watching their every move. it's easy to blame parents for being irresponsible, but who created an atmosphere of games and apps that specifically prey on children?

Not the people who give their kids access to the apps store after they authorized purchases.

Have you used an iphone? It used to be as easy as a kid asking if the parent to put in their password and then the kid can purchase things ingame without actually going to the app store for the next 15 minutes. Parents aren't perfect, they're often quite stressed out and make mistakes. Apple shouldn't profit from that.

 

[Dogstile]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

An iphone shouldn't be a dangerous tool to let your kids play on without constantly watching their every move. it's easy to blame parents for being irresponsible, but who created an atmosphere of games and apps that specifically prey on children?

Not the people who give their kids access to the apps store after they authorized purchases.

Have you used an iphone? It used to be as easy as a kid asking if the parent to put in their password and then the kid can purchase things ingame without actually going to the app store for the next 15 minutes. Parents aren't perfect, they're often quite stressed out and make mistakes. Apple shouldn't profit from that.

True, but it's still the parent's own damn fault for not realizing they've allowed their kids to spend real money. It's no less irresponsible than not checking ESRB ratings on actual videogames. I don't think they should be let off the hook completely. Reimbursement is alright but there should be some kind of penalty.

Why? Its not as if Apple made it clear. They don't bring up a notice and its not a feature that is often talked about. This is one of the first (if not the first) time its been easy enough to do on this scale with phones and apple had told nobody, except the users who experimented with it.

 

[Athinira]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

An iphone shouldn't be a dangerous tool to let your kids play on without constantly watching their every move. it's easy to blame parents for being irresponsible, but who created an atmosphere of games and apps that specifically prey on children?

Not the people who give their kids access to the apps store after they authorized purchases.

Have you used an iphone? It used to be as easy as a kid asking if the parent to put in their password and then the kid can purchase things ingame without actually going to the app store for the next 15 minutes. Parents aren't perfect, they're often quite stressed out and make mistakes. Apple shouldn't profit from that.

True, but it's still the parent's own damn fault for not realizing they've allowed their kids to spend real money. It's no less irresponsible than not checking ESRB ratings on actual videogames. I don't think they should be let off the hook completely. Reimbursement is alright but there should be some kind of penalty.

No it's not.

Traditional HCI procedure is that if you want something to remember you password, you have to check a "Remember my password" box.

Apple didn't put up such a box. They just assumed that the user wanted to remember the password (for 15 minutes), didn't warn about the fact that you can purchase absolutely anything you want for 15 minutes after inputting the password - not just in the App Store, but also inside the apps themselves - and the result is what we see today. Given that 'Remember my password' is pretty much everywhere else, even IT-experts could have been fooled by this because it's not something you would normally expect (i bet that there is in fact a lot of IT-savy parents amongst those who fell for this). And if IT-savy people can fall for it, how the hell do you expect the normal user to stand a chance? )

I believe that most parents, since there wasn't a 'Remember my password' (or 'Keep me logged in', take your pick) box when entering their password, expected the device to not allow purchases after they quote-and-quote 'shut down' the App Store-app (although technically it's only minimized). At the very least, it's certainly NOT an unreasonable expectation that the password shouldn't be remembered across apps without explicit permission (so that once you exit the App Store, and enter an app with In-App Purchases, it should request the password again because it's a different App).

I'm sorry, but I'm with the parents on this one. I've been thinkering with IT for 19 years of my life (I'm 25), and i believe that if I had a kid, even i could have been fooled by this. And i believe the same thing about you

Edit:

That's why I'm saying they should pay attention to what their kids are doing, especially with a function that allows them to spend real money. Take some time to find out what the hell goes on in that game before you let it raise your child.

This argument bothers me also.

Listen, not all parents are IT-savy. They didn't grow up with it, and they simply don't understand it.

People keep arguing about 'bad parenting', but it's a simply fact that kids shouldn't grow up being IT-idiots because their parents don't understand it. My father hardly knows how to turn on a computer, and my mother has only gotten reasonably experienced in the last few years. Should me and my two sisters never have gotten a computer because my parents don't understand it? Of course not. I'm happy that I'm a computer-wiz today despite my parents not being that.

iPads are no different. Kids who grow up now is going to be using that stuff both as they grow up and when thwey're grown up, and it doesn't make sense that they shouldn't learn it at home just because their parents aren't good at this.

What this mean is that these devices need to be SAFE, even for the idiot parents. Yes, we can't protect against all idiots (or acts of idiots), but we can protect against most. And Apple failed that. Parents need to be able to hand their kids stuff like this - even if they don't understand it - because they kids are going to use these devices in their lives (at school, at work, future home, and their childhood home is no exception), and it should be safe for them to do so. Yes if they hand the kid the password to purchase they're morons (and some parents probably do that), but parents who doesn't hand the kids their passwords shouldn't be fearing this.

And I'm glad that Apple changed their policy.

 

[Dogstile]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

An iphone shouldn't be a dangerous tool to let your kids play on without constantly watching their every move. it's easy to blame parents for being irresponsible, but who created an atmosphere of games and apps that specifically prey on children?

Not the people who give their kids access to the apps store after they authorized purchases.

Have you used an iphone? It used to be as easy as a kid asking if the parent to put in their password and then the kid can purchase things ingame without actually going to the app store for the next 15 minutes. Parents aren't perfect, they're often quite stressed out and make mistakes. Apple shouldn't profit from that.

True, but it's still the parent's own damn fault for not realizing they've allowed their kids to spend real money. It's no less irresponsible than not checking ESRB ratings on actual videogames. I don't think they should be let off the hook completely. Reimbursement is alright but there should be some kind of penalty.

Why? Its not as if Apple made it clear. They don't bring up a notice and its not a feature that is often talked about. This is one of the first (if not the first) time its been easy enough to do on this scale with phones and apple had told nobody, except the users who experimented with it.

That's why I'm saying they should pay attention to what their kids are doing, especially with a function that allows them to spend real money. Take some time to find out what the hell goes on in that game before you let it raise your child.

But they're not letting it raise their child, these are normal kids given a game to play and pressing on the shiny buttons. Hell, my 9 year old brother is allowed on my iphone to play games and if I hadn't decided to buy two apps in a row, I wouldn't have realised that the system allowed you to do that.

This is a less "oh, the parents are idiots and didn't test it out" and more "unless you test it out in a select way, its actually quite hard to realise it does that".

 

[Athinira]

See my previous post. I'm not saying it wasn't a bad idea to begin with, but weither or not I could have been fooled by this (yes I could have) doesn't mean it wasn't still careless on my part.

See my previous post too, i edited in a big section (you just replied too fast).

Basically my point is that not all parents are IT-savy. Some of them simply don't know jack sh*t about IT, but they shouldn't be afraid to give IT-stuff to their kids because of that, for the simple reason that this is the future and their kids will live in that world.

Society is specialized. We all have our areas of expertise, and for many people of the old world, IT simply isn't one of them. Manufacturers have a responsibility to make this stuff relatively safe to use, even if the buyer is an idiot.

Captcha: "badger, mushroom" <-- Well played!

 

[flarty]

Way to teach people that it's not their responsibility to make sure their ten year old doesn't have unsupervised access to a gadget capable of making purchases. Personally I don't care how easy it is for kids to do it. If they are at the age where they don't understand money, they shouldn't be on one or have one without close supervision. If they are old enough, then the parents should make the kids cover some/all of the cash spent, or cover it themselves.

There is a reason for why most things say you should be a certain age before you can have an account.

That's why I'm saying they should pay attention to what their kids are doing, especially with a function that allows them to spend real money. Take some time to find out what the hell goes on in that game before you let it raise your child.

Well guess who hasn't got kids everyone.

But seriously, parents letting iPhone games raise their children? Lets think about how this might occur. Parent leaves house to do adult things that need to be done (for example open a new bank account because their current bank sucks donkey balls). Oh dear the child doesn't think the bank is such a fun place to be for 30 minutes while their parent isn't giving them their full attention. Child starts to annoy parent while they are trying to concentrate on filling out forms or talking to a member of staff. Quick solution to the problem download an app and let the child play whilst you get the chore out the way.

I'm guessing you've never been in a car with a screaming child in the back either. Theirs been times when i would of happily gave my daughter full access to my googleplay account if it meant she would be quiet whilst i was driving. Think about what you say before you criticise a certain demographic in which you obviously have no experience in.

 

[weirdee]

bottom line

technology: humans can't handle it

 

[Legion]

Well guess who hasn't got kids everyone.

But seriously, parents letting iPhone games raise their children? Lets think about how this might occur. Parent leaves house to do adult things that need to be done (for example open a new bank account because their current bank sucks donkey balls). Oh dear the child doesn't think the bank is such a fun place to be for 30 minutes while their parent isn't giving them their full attention. Child starts to annoy parent while they are trying to concentrate on filling out forms or talking to a member of staff. Quick solution to the problem download an app and let the child play whilst you get the chore out the way.

I'm guessing you've never been in a car with a screaming child in the back either. Theirs been times when i would of happily gave my daughter full access to my googleplay account if it meant she would be quiet whilst i was driving. Think about what you say before you criticise a certain demographic in which you obviously have no experience in.

So before Ipads existed parents did nothing? Children just ran wild?

Also pointing out that somebody isn't in that situation is not an argument against points they make. You don't have to personally experience something to have an opinion on it. If you want to criticise my points, by all means, but don't act like you being a parent and me not automatically makes your points more valid.

 

[Aeshi]

Thereby proving yet again that, in todays world, your mistakes are only your fault when you can't find someone other than you to blame them on.

 

[flarty]

So before Ipads existed parents did nothing? Children just ran wild?

Also pointing out that somebody isn't in that situation is not an argument against points they make. You don't have to personally experience something to have an opinion on it. If you want to criticise my points, by all means, but don't act like you being a parent and me not automatically makes your points more valid.

Dont be silly. Course they didnt, but technology such as iphones present an easy way of pacifying kids. So with your first point we should all throw our computer games away because the cup & ball was invented way before them. Why take advantage of the numerous benefits technology present us with?

Also yes my experience of being a parent, having to live with children 24/7 for the last few years makes my point a whole lot more valid than yours on raising children. The key in that sentance being experience. You also prove my point when admiting i was right that you have no kids.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

This'll put a dent in the "we're gonna buy samsung" fund... lol no it wont