The company Google is facing a lawsuit in the United Statesfor those criticized and feared payments within applications A problem that is not news for the first time and that seems to be unresolved after the different cases that have come to light light in which a minor, without parental consent, has managed to charge costs to their parents' bank accounts after downloading a free application that contained this type of content .
This is a class action lawsuit of American parents who have suffered in their wallets the lack of protection when makingpurchases in some applications And the lawsuit directly accuses Google of not offering barriers as simple as an efficient password to avoid this type of pranks and actions that are not always carried out consciously. In fact, in the press release published by the law firm in charge of handling the case, Berger and Montague, they state that this content is intended to beaddictive and induce purchase of add-ons once the mechanics have been tested.
Apparently the case that gave rise to this lawsuit is the complaint of a woman who paid 65.95 dollars after her son left to the game Marvel Run Jump Smash via your tabletAnd it is that the video games are the main applications that have embraced the freemium model, offering games free but with additional content that must be purchased within the application to advance, beat a certain point or simply improve the gaming experience. Issues that are related to the bank accounts of parents and guardians through the terminal itself and that sometimes incur high costs.
Thus, the lawsuit states that not only are they contents that induce the purchase of new additions, but that these elements are usually grouped into large quantities sometimes reaching and exceeding $100 in a single purchase. All this without there being truly effective protection against these practices. And it is that although it is necessary to establish a password when buying and downloading an application, it will not be so again in a period of 30 minutesMore than enough time for infants to make some kind of additional charge unconsciously or not. A real danger for the most careless parents.
This case is inevitably reminiscent of the settlement that the company Apple reached last year and for which it had to return $24 million to parents who suffered in-app payments without giving explicit consent. And it is that in the case of said lawsuit there were those who managed to reach the dizzying figure of 2,600 dollars after compulsively buying content from a game or application. Now we will have to wait and see if Google decides to reach some kind of agreement and comply with the requests of this lawsuit to offer more protection to users. Something other than simply reporting that a game or app has in-app purchases or in-app purchases before you download it.
