It all seems so innocent. You hand your kid a smartphone and say, Here. Have fun! But next thing you know, you're receiving one of those polite emails from Google informing you about your in-app purchase of $66.
My what?!?
Exactly. You have just been punked and by your kid, no less. Technically, it's not totally their fault. Often, the children involved in these scenarios are young and simply don't know any better. They just want to keep playing this awesome game, no matter what. It's more the fault of money-hungry app creators and the app stores that stock these apps, which are more than happy to make a profit with unauthorized in-app purchases. That is, until they get sued.
A New York mom by the name of Ilana Imber-Gluck, filed a class-action lawsuit against Google on Friday, over the $66 one of her two children spent on in-app purchases, while playing the game "Run Jump Smash" on her Samsung smartphone. In comparison with other in-app purchase lawsuits against Apple, this one is for chump change. Some Apple lawsuits have been over in-app purchases amounting to thousands of dollars. Still, it's bad press for Google and it's something the company could easily have prevented.
Google even had advanced warning that this could become an issue when Apple was forced to pay $32.5 million in refunds to victims of unauthorized in-app purchases in January. Apple has been ordered to fix the hole in its app purchasing system, which allows app purchases to be made within a 15-minute window after the initial purchase of the app, without reentering the password. The problem must be solved by the end of March, or Apple will face consequences with the Federal Trade Commission. Google's window is even longer at 30 minutes. So, of course, it has become a problem.
Google's failure to fix this issue before it turned into a lawsuit has led some to believe that the company simply doesn't care if unauthorized in-app purchases are wrong, so long as it makes money.
"Google has unfairly profited by marketing free or low-cost games to children and by permitting them to easily rack up charges for worthless in-game currency, by failing to incorporate reasonable controls such has requiring the entry of a password," read a statement from the law firm that is representing the Gluck parents, Berger & Montague.
In a sense, it's more likely the fault of the app developers who made the game in question for including in-app purchases in the first place. It is common practice among makers of gaming apps to post the apps as free and then tack on new, in-app purchases at every corner. The ethics of this are clearly questionable, but as of yet, little has been done to stop game makers from exploiting users both young and old.
