Epic Games Inc. has agreed to pay $520 million to the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that “Fortnite” violated online privacy protections for children and tricked players into unintentional purchases.
According to Forbes, Epic Games has received two allegations: The first alleges that the company violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from players under the age of 13 without notifying parents or obtaining their consent.
The article notes that Epic Games would have illegally enabled real-time voice and text chat for children and teenagers, causing more players to be “intimidated, threatened, harassed and exposed to dangerous and psychologically traumatic problems, such as suicide”.
The second allegation, in turn, focuses on consumer refunds, with the agency alleging that Epic implemented a number of tactics in Fortnite to trick players into making unintentional purchases, while also creating a number of barriers to undo those same purchases.
In addition to having to pay this amount, Epic will still need to make significant changes to its purchasing system to avoid these situations in the future, institute a privacy program, obtain independent audits, and offer refunds to customers who believe they have been wrongly charged in – items of game.
We’ll see if Epic Games will release a statement on the matter.
