We are beginning to understand why Epic Games has put forward new measures to protect minors who currently play at Fortnite. As we might have guessed, all this does not start (only) from a good feeling, since we learn today that the company received a very significant penalty from the FTC (the US regulator), which is suing Epic Games for its failures to protect children in the game.
Unwanted payments finally refunded
This is a record fine that Epic Games accepts today. The FTC indicates that the publisher must pay 275 million dollars to the COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), the children’s privacy protection agency, but also 245 million in reimbursement to users who have unwittingly paid while playing Fortnite. What makes us a total of 520 million dollars to disburse.
According to the FTC, Epic Games violated COPPA rules by collecting information from minors under the age of 13 without adult consent or validation. In addition, having set the game chat to real time without moderation for children and teenagers would also be reprehensible, since it would expose them to harassment. This detail is also one of the things that have been changed recently on the game by Epic Games.
The FTC also indicates that Epic Games intentionally misled young people by making them spend money without them realizing it, in particular via a confusing interface. There would thus be more than a million complaints of involuntary payments, to which Epic Games did not respond.
These charges relate to facts that some date from before 2018, but in order to avoid a lawsuit, Epic Games has agreed to pay this fine and declares to ensure that consumers are more protected in the future:
” We agreed to this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we have made changes to ensure that our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a useful guide for others in our industry. »
Let’s hope that this record payment serves as a lesson to the entire industry, which must better protect the youngest against dangerous economic systems.