Sky News Arabia
The US Federal Trade Commission and Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, will pay $520 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected personal information from children and tricked users into making purchases.
The company will pay a record $275 million fine for violating the Children’s Privacy Act and adopt strict defaults to protect children’s privacy.
The Federal Trade Commission said the company will also pay $245 million to reimburse consumers who were duped by so-called “dark models” into making purchases they didn’t intend to make.
“Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive user interfaces that misled Fortnite users, including teenagers and children,” FTC Chair Lena Khan said in a statement.
The announcement comes as the federal agency begins to play a bigger role in censoring the gaming industry, last week announcing a complaint against Microsoft over its $69 billion bid to acquire video game company Activision .
