By Vanessa Obioha
On Monday, December 19, the United States Federal Trade Commission penalised Epic Games Inc., the makers of the popular video game Fortnite for complaints revolving around children’s privacy and its payment methods that tricked players into making unintended purchases. The federal regulators reached a $520 million settlement on two cases with the company.
Epic Games is to pay $275 million to settle regulators’ accusations that it violated federal law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, by collecting personal information from children under 13 who played Fortnite without obtaining verifiable consent from a parent, as reported by the New York Times.
The other part of the settlement requires the video game powerhouse to pay $245 million in customer refunds.
“Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button,” FTC Chair, Lina Khan, said in a statement.
This practice is known as dark patterns, deceptive online techniques used to nudge users into doing things they didn’t intend to do.
The video game maker said it agreed to the FTC deal because it wants “to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players.”
The penalty, according to reports, is the biggest to be imposed by the FTC and dwarfs the $170 million penalty Google paid in 2019 for child privacy violations.
