‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games will pay $520 million in fines and refunds to settle complaints over children’s privacy.
US federal regulars said earlier this month the record-breaking settlement will also cover methods that tricked players into making purchases.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said it had secured the settlements for two cases against the company, adding: “Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked ‘Fortnite’ users, including teenagers and children.
‘Epic Games’ agreed to pay $275 million for collecting personal information on ‘Fortnite’ players under the age of 13 without informing their parents or getting their consent – the biggest ever penalty issued for breaking an FTC rule.
It is also refunding $245 million to customers who were the victims of “dark patterns” – used to push users into doing things they did not intend to do.
The FTC said ‘Fortnite’ players could be charged while trying to wake the game from sleep mode, while the game was in a loading screen, or by pressing a button when simply trying to preview an item.
It added about the tactics: “Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button.”
“These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers.”
Epic said it had eliminated pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanics when two players compete against each other and axed random item loot boxes in 2019.
It also said that it was putting into place an explicit yes/no choice to save payment information.
Epic said it had also created features such as easier access to parental controls and a PIN requirement to allow guardians to authorise payments and a daily spending limit for children aged under 13.
