The FTC has fined Epic Games for using «design tricks» to «dupe» players into making unintentional purchases.
Games publisher Epic Games has settled a dispute with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to pay $520m / £428.4m/ AU$778m in fines and relief following violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Epic Games, creators of online battle royale Fortnite, will be paying one cash penalty of $275m /£225.8m /AU$411.9m for going against COPPA practices and another sum of $245m/ £201.3m / AU$366.9m to be distributed in refunds. This is the “largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule,” the US watchdog says in its official statement (opens in new tab). In addition to the fines, the FTC says Epic Games needs to “adopt strong privacy default settings for children and teens, ensuring that voice and text communications are turned off by default.”
“We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players,” Epic said in a statement (opens in new tab). “Over the past few years, we’ve been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry.”
The lump sum will be collected by the FTC from Epic Games to settle its dispute via the US Department of Justice. It serves as reparations for two separate code violations: one pertinent to privacy violation, and the other to the “illegal dark patterns” of the Epic Games business model itself.
The FTC’s complaint against Epic’s “dark patterns” is threefold; firstly, that it uses said patterns and business models to “trick users into making purchases”, secondly that it “charged account holders without authorization,” and thirdly that it withheld pre-purchased content and refused to refund it.
