Epic Games Company He obtained by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC). two large fines totaling $520 million. Both offenses refer to the popular Battle Royale event Fortnite.
The first concerns the violation of the law on the collection of data from users under the age of thirteen without the consent of their legal representatives (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). At this point the FTC means to turn on voice and text chat automatically in Fortnite and difficult to disable, which could lead to harassment, intimidation and collection of personal information of minors. Epic was fined $275 million for violating this law. This is the highest fine ever imposed under the aforementioned federal law.
The second offense concerns paid add-on content. According to the FTC, it is purposely constructed in such a way that make unwanted purchases as easy as possible pressing a single button without parental involvement. At this point, Epic must reimburse customers $245 million worth of unwanted purchases, according to the FTC.
Management of Epic Games on both points mentioned agreed to pay the aforementioned sums. Otherwise, the whole situation would have to be resolved through the court. The company must also proceed to resolve the problem areas. The result, for example, is the new account type released this month for young users, where features like live chat and purchases are already disabled by default.
