When companies bypass parents

Parents out there, I have a warning to give to you and it doesn't involve your child cursing out older Call of Duty gamers. It involves two companies: Apple and Facebook.

First off, Apple is being sued because their iTunes games are considered to addictive

Apple is being sued by a group of parents in a class action lawsuit because they call the company’s children’s games too “addictive.” The lawsuit was recently green lit by a San Jose judge.

According to the lawsuit the company’s games are:

“Highly addictive, designed deliberately to be so, and tend to compel children playing them to purchase large quantities of game currency, amounting to as much as $100 per purchase or more.”

Parents in the lawsuit argue that while the games can be downloaded for free in-app purchases can cause the cost of those games to skyrocket. The parents cite “Smurfberries” currency which sell in the Smurfs game for $59 per batch.

The lawsuit argues that children use their parents iTunes account to purchase the extras.


Now before you say "Well they should have ether safeguarded their iPads or not have bought them at all," I say "Apple is evil and they are corrupting the parents into buying the devices for the little ones." Isn't it obvious? Apple isn't trying to corrupt the children. They're trying to corrupt the adults. If I want my corruption, I got Steam to take good care of me. Isn't that right, Gabe Newell?

And as for Facebook, well you don't need a $700 tablet to get the job done.

A California mother is suing Facebook claiming that the company is allowing minors to make purchases via in-game micro-transactions and that allowing this to happen without parental consent violates California's consumer protection laws.

Glynnis Bohannon filed the lawsuit in California and is asking the court for a full refund on all the purchases made by her daughter without her consent. She also claims in her lawsuit that Facebook is not providing enough preventative measures to stop underage users from making purchases. She also wants refunds for "all parents and legal guardians in the United States whose minor children made unauthorized purchases of Facebook Credits from the minor child's Facebook account."

That means, parents. If your kids bought DLC from Facebook, you could be entitled to a refund. But unfortunately, there's a catch to this.

Under Facebook's policies regarding purchases, children under the age of 18 are not allowed to buy items off the site without parental approval. We're guessing that Facebook may say that this policy does not extend to third-party apps. We would also assume that giving your child access to a credit card is considered a form of consent in some legal circles, but who knows for sure...

Aww come on now, Facebook. Don't tell me how to be responsible. That is suppose to be your duty and prohibiting anyone under 18 to buy items off the site is not good enough. I'd say figure a way to go even further than just restricting kids from buying DLC.

Which reminds me. How did that wedding in Canterlot go? Did they get hitched? Did the villain who came out of nowhere win and converted everyone to Changelism?

Works Cited
Inquisitr
Game Politics