The developers of Fortnite, Epic Games are set to pay a record sum of $520 million in settlements to the Federal Trade Commission and affected parties for violating Children’s privacy policy as the Government of the United States claims that the game mislead millions, including children into making unintended purchases, thus violating a landmark federal children’s privacy law
With the increase in online activities of everyone in the modern day, it is essential to have laws to govern the entities on the internet. Children’s privacy and protection is a matter of extreme importance and Epic Games have violated said privacy and now they find themselves paying a record sum of $520 million as a penalty.
According to the FTC, the default setting of the game enables the developers to freely use and profit from the data collected from children playing the game. They also added the communication system and the overall nature of the game expose children to online bullying and harassment.
“Protecting the public, and especially children, from online privacy invasions and dark patterns is a top priority for the Commission, and these enforcement actions make clear to businesses that the FTC is cracking down on these unlawful practices,” said FTC chairperson Lina Khan.
They further added that making payments was far too easy and accessible for the children and no parental permission was put in place, as a result, children kept on making purchases that their parents were unaware of thus violating COPPA.
“No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here,” Epic said in their official statement. “We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.”
$275 million dollars in fines is what EPIC will pay for violating COPPA, given they collected data from kids without any content from their parents whatsoever and $245 million to the consumers who fell victim to user-interface design choices made by EPIC that disguised microtransactions.
Thank you for reading, For more exclusive esports and gaming content, please follow us on Google News.
