{"id":130677,"date":"2022-12-19T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-142821"},"modified":"2022-12-19T16:30:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T16:30:00","slug":"epic-games-to-pay-540-million-over-allegations-of-privacy-violations-and-unwanted-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/12\/19\/epic-games-to-pay-540-million-over-allegations-of-privacy-violations-and-unwanted-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Epic Games To Pay $540 Million Over Allegations Of Privacy Violations And Unwanted Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a8ced82dfa11\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a8ced82dfa11\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<figure class=\"picture\"><a class=\"scanlines\" title=\"Fortnite\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a8ced82dfa11\/fortnite.large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZpZXdCb3g9IjAgMCA5MDAgNTM1Ij48L3N2Zz4=\" width=\"900\" height=\"535\" data-original=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a8ced82dfa11\/fortnite.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Fortnite\"><\/a><figcaption class=\"caption\"><em class=\"credit\">Image: Epic Games<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Epic Games, the developer behind the massive online shooter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/fortnite\">Fortnite<\/a>, has agreed to pay a total of <strong>$540 million<\/strong> to settle allegations made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/news\/press-releases\/2022\/12\/fortnite-video-game-maker-epic-games-pay-more-half-billion-dollars-over-ftc-allegations\">post on the official FTC website<\/a>, the agency confirmed that the developer will pay a $275 million penalty for violating children\u2019s privacy law along with $245 million worth of refunds for tricking users into making unwanted purchases.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"object object-tweet\"><!-- cache: oembed\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/ftc\/statuses\/1604841410418466816 @ 2022-12-20T09:55:53+00:00 --><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p><span lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Epic Games creator of the video game Fortnite, to pay a total of $520 million over FTC allegations Epic violated the Children\u2019s Online Privacy Protection Act and deployed dark patterns to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yHaQx8VXlu\">https:\/\/t.co\/yHaQx8VXlu<\/a><\/span>\u2014 FTC (@FTC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FTC\/status\/1604841410418466816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 19, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The FTC alleges that Epic Games &#8220;deployed design tricks, known as dark patterns (which <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dark_pattern\">Wikipedia<\/a> defines as &#8220;a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills&#8221;), to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases&#8221;. The penalty levied against the developer is the largest ever obtained for violating an FTC rule, and Epic Games will be required to &#8220;adopt strong privacy default settings for children and teens, ensuring that voice and text communications are turned off by default&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the refunds, &#8220;Epic will pay $245 million to refund consumers for its dark patterns and billing practices, which is the FTC\u2019s largest refund amount in a gaming case, and its largest administrative order in history.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>FTC Chair Lina M. Khan, said the following regarding the settlement:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;As our complaints note, Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked Fortnite users, including teenagers and children. Protecting the public, and especially children, from online privacy invasions and dark patterns is a top priority for the Commission, and these enforcement actions make clear to businesses that the FTC is cracking down on these unlawful practices.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><!-- cache: html:nintendolife.com\/ssl\/switch-eshop\/related-articles:142467 @ 2022-12-20T09:43:05+00:00 --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"block object-related\"> <\/aside>\n<p><em>Wthat do you make of the FTC&#8217;s decision against Epic Games? Do you agree that the developer had implemented &#8216;dark patterns&#8217; into the game? Let us know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image: Epic Games Epic Games, the developer behind the massive online shooter Fortnite, has agreed to pay a total of $540 million to settle allegations made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In a post on the official FTC website, the agency confirmed that the developer will pay a $275 million penalty for violating children\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}