British authorities have launched an investigation into the case of in-game purchases in children's freemium games

On Habré it was repeatedly told about such a model of monetization of applications, like freemium, when the game itself is completely free, but some things / additions are purchased for money. Everything is clear, and the model is quite harmless. But not in the case of children's applications, which literally force the child to buy game things. And in some cases there are not very pleasant situations, for example, when a boy from the UK in 15 minutes scored virtual goods for 1989 euros in Zombies vs Ninja , or a girl spent 1055 euros for half an hour playing My Little Pony . Of course, here we can say that parents should keep an eye on their child, but not all parents are so technically advanced to know about the possibility of buying some kind of virtual swords, machine parts and dresses. And sometimes these most "unmoved" parents are surprised to find out that tens and hundreds of dollars have gone somewhere on a credit card tied to the app store / google play.

Freemium games are spreading almost uncontrollably, and hardly anyone is tracking ways to attract new customers in the virtual world of such a game. The UK Office of Fair Trading has launched a large-scale investigation into browser-based and “smartphone” children's games, in order to find unclean companies that are forced to buy any in-game items / add-ons. Google Play and the App store, as the largest catalogs of applications for mobile devices, are also affected by the investigation. So far, the authorities are simply “communicating” with Google and Apple, but in the future a detailed investigation can be conducted with the participation of any of the companies.
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Representatives of the Office have already stated that in the event of any violations, the force of law will be used, so to speak. And in case of refusal to cooperate with the authorities, any of the companies can be fined, and there is simply no limit on the fine. The point here is not so much about Google and Apple themselves, but about game developers who put their applications in the directories of the corporations named.

The Office of Legal Trade, or rather, its representatives, believe that a direct incentive for a child to purchase (or not a child, but an adult, for example, the parent of a child) is a direct violation of consumer rights (a law was passed in 2008). The concept of “in-game purchase” includes actions such as purchasing membership, virtual currency, levels, faster gameplay, virtual goods, and more.

Officials have already begun to request information from the companies developing children's freemium games, in order to obtain data on the mechanisms of monetization of such games. Officials emphasize that they do not intend to prohibit the purchase of virtual goods, the main thing is to create appropriate mechanisms to protect children from situations like the ones described above.

Via techcrunch