Parents to get refunds for purchases children made on Amazon apps
The refunds bring closure to a nearly three-year legal battle surrounding complaints that the tech giant made it too easy for children to make the purchases.
Federal regulators filed a lawsuit in July 2014 saying Amazon charged parents millions of dollars of unauthorized payments for what’s known as “in-app purchases,” virtual items offered within mobile games such as Candy Crush Saga, reported the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos.
In an April 2016 ruling, a federal judge granted the FTC a summary judgment that found Amazon responsible for the charges. While entering a password linking an Amazon account to a new device, “a reasonable consumer unaware of the possibility of in-app purchases would not assume she was authorizing unforeseen charges,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour wrote in his order.