Amazon buckles under parent pressure to refund $70m of children’s in-app purchases
Amazon has ended a year-long fight to retain $70m of in-app purchases that were found to have been illegally billed to children, after dropping an appeal against the court's decision.
As a result Amazon will now ‘shortly’ begin the process of refunding affected customers who were landed by outlandish bills when their children ran rampant on so-called freemium apps, which are free to download but which encourage payments for extras.
A US judge criticised Amazon’s oversight of in-app purchases back in 2016, arguing that Amazon did not offer sufficient notice to account holders when charges were being made in their name and that app password requirements were too lax to prevent abuse.
The Federal Trade Commission estimated that a lack of oversight in the area led to unwarranted charges of $70m being made between November 2011 and May 2016.
In November Amazon offered to reimburse customers by way of gift cards rather than cash but this was rejected by the US courts.
Amazon's woes extend beyond the US with the company being investigated in Italy alongside Apple and Google over similar abuse of in-app purchases.