US demands $520 million from Fortnite maker over Privacy, E-Commerce abuses
Delhi : The players who were harmed by so-called "dark patterns" and billing methods will get the $245 million in consumer reimbursements. Dark patterns are misleading web strategies that persuade people to take actions they did not mean to do.
U.S. federal authorities said on Monday that the developer of the well-known video game Fortnite would pay $520 million in fines and refunds to resolve concerns about children's privacy and its payment systems that mislead users into making unauthorized purchases.
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Chair Lina Khan declared in a statement that "Epic employed privacy-invasive default settings and misleading interfaces that deceived Fortnite users, especially teens and minors."
Epic claimed in a statement that it had already implemented a number of adjustments "to ensure our ecosystem fulfils the expectations of our players and authorities, which we believe will be an useful roadmap for others in our industry" before the settlement was made public. The Cary, North Carolina-based business said that it no longer follows the FTC-reported business practises.
For instance, it stated that players may pay charges when attempting to revive the game from sleep mode, while it was in a loading screen, or by pushing a nearby button while only attempting to preview an item.
According to the FTC, "these strategies resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful charges for consumers."
No developer makes a game with the purpose of it appearing here, according to Epic.
In an effort to lower the barriers defending the iPhone app store, which over the last 14 years has grown to become one of the largest e-commerce centres in the world, Epic has also been engaged in a high-profile legal battle with Apple over the past two years. After Epic changed the Fortnite game's payment method in August 2020, Apple removed the video from the app store, which led to a lawsuit that was tried in court last year.
In Chicago, Illinois, a video game outlet is offering Fortnite V-Bucks. The Federal Trade Commission has ordered Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, to pay $520 million to resolve claims that it acquired personal information from children without their parents' or guardians' permission. (AFP)
