Google Sued Over Children's In-App Android Purchases 321
jfruh writes "Android apps sold through the Google Play app store require the user to enter their username and password before making an in-app purchase — but once they've done that, they can continue to do so for half an hour without re-authenticating. Now a lawsuit is claiming this loophole allows children to run up in-app purchases on their parents' credit cards, 'causing Google to pocket millions of dollars.'"
Please.... (Score:5, Funny)
For once, won't someone think of the PARENTS?
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you jest, but once my 3 year old son purchased $28 of nothing from nexon through google play.
The apps are designed to make it really easy for both non-readers and readers alike to buy stuff with flashy graphics.
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wallet manufacturers must be quaking in their boots.
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A: "Sure"
B: "Why?"
Which sounds more responsible?
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, there is. it is right there in the agreement that YOU SHOULD HAVE READ when you first use the store. you clicked "i agree"
What? you did not read that? not our problem.
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It is their problem is the agreement is unreasonably long. For example no-one could reasonably be expected to fully read and understand the PayPal or iTunes Terms of Service because they are longer than most novels and full of legal jargon.
A lot of people look at this situation backwards. They see it as "company offers a service, onus is on you to check it out". The law, at least in Europe, is that the company only has permission to offer a service if it agrees to society's rules, one of which is "no unreas
Re: Please.... (Score:3)
It doesn't matter what is in the contract with apple or bank. The charge put onto the credit card was an act of fraud perpetrated by the child. The card holder did not contractually consent to the transaction. The only recourse for Apple or the bank is to have the child criminally prosecuted or commence a civil suit to try and hold the parent(s) responsible for the child's actions. Good luck with ether one of those, as Apple facilitated the child. Furthermore, because the card holder did not consent to the
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No warning sign... except for entering the password...
Am I missing something, or are you trying to be funny?
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If I put in a password and it flashed up "Authorised for 30 minutes" and had an easy way to cancel the 30 minutes, then the fault would be clearly with the parent.
It's unreasonable to have a hidden timeout to allow kids to buy games on someone else's account.
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly the problem.
Current situation: Thank you for entering your password to authorize the purchase on screen. I will not bother to mention that you've also authorized unlimited additional purchases over the next half hour.
Bare minimum acceptable solution: Thank you for entering your password to authorize this purchase, as well as unlimited additional purchases for half an hour.
Slightly better: Please enter your password to authorize this purchase, as well as unlimited additional purchases for half an hour.
Good, and easy solution: Thank you for your purchase. Authorize additional purchases for the next (30 minutes | 24 hours | Forever | No thanks, ask for my password next time ).
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are not supposed to know the full range of consequences of their actions, that is why we call them children and treat them in a certain way.
First of all, the in-app purchasing is specifically designed to not warn you when a purchase is made, and to make the purchases as subtle as possible. Even if that were not the case, you'd have to buy the app or whatever and wait 30 minutes before handing the device back to your child to be safe, yet there is currently no indication that the timer is even running or when it expires - not one that is easily accessible. And the mere fact that Google expects you to sit around with your device for 30 minutes, waiting for a timer to expire is unreasonable in the extreme.
This is absolutely a tech issue, as well as an ethics issue. Google likes the easy money, and their responses to parents who have complained about it have been less than stellar. Google is in a position to both build and destroy trust in consumer computing, on behalf of not only themselves, but everyone who develops for their devices and similar devices. The position Google has taken on this issue is the money-grab-and-run short term approach, and they've been pointing at the app developers for the fix. This is unreasonable, and doesn't actually fix the broken eco-system that is Android apps. The good guys will continue to be the good guys and you're giving a free pass to the rotten apples. Couple this with the fact that it is almost impossible to tell good from bad on Android until you get burned, and you have a major issue going forward, and Google is well on its way to forcing legislation on this issue. Legislation that I bet Google is going to piss and moan over when it passes, even though they, and fuckwits like them, were the ones to cause it.
Short story even shorter: fix the fucking issue and get on with it already. The fix is so simple it would be hilarious if it wasn't such a fucking money-grab from a supposedly not evil corporation. Make purchasing passwords one time only, or allow for restrictions on where and when the purchasing can be made.
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, the in-app purchasing is specifically designed to not warn you when a purchase is made, and to make the purchases as subtle as possible.
Just yesterday there was news elsewhere that with iOS 7.1 (which allows a 15 minute period without password entry), when you enter your password now, a dialog will appear telling you about it, with an OK button and a button that takes you to "Settings" where you can turn that feature off.
Re: Please.... (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure where you read that, but Apple went through this exact problem several years ago . Kids spending literally hundreds of dollars because once mom entered the store password, they didn't need it again for 30 minutes. ...
After that , they NICELY refunded all those silly transactions and then made it require a password FOR EVERY PURCHASE.
If 7.1 gives a 15 minute window, that's brand new and backwards from their previous direction.
I'm on 7.0.6 now, requires a password for ALL purchases, even 10 seconds
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost like Apple and Google were both in the wrong, and Apple corrected it.
Oh wait, it's exactly like that.
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Kids are not supposed to know the full range of consequences of their actions
Not supposed to? As in, it would be a bad thing if they did?
Also, if we treat people who don't know the full range of consequences of their actions in a certain way, why aren't most adults--who are merely overgrown children--treated that way?
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Also, if we treat people who don't know the full range of consequences of their actions in a certain way, why aren't most adults--who are merely overgrown children--treated that way?
Indeed, why not? Because money has the same value regardless who forks it over. Making in-app purchasing seamless, subtle and easy just means taking it from the mentally impaired or small children is also much easier, as well as shafting regular people. And Google among others have no qualms over doing it, and subsequently pointing at page 27 of their ToS to whisk away their responsibility. This doesn't really fit with their "don't be evil" motto at all, but who gives a fuck as long as at least a portion of
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To begin with, the justice system should be based entirely on rehabilitation, not punishment, so it's our "Tough On Crime" mentality that causes these problems in the first place. So we should be tailoring it to the individuals, anyway. I care more about real justice than anything else.
Well, this is where I bow out. I agree entirely that rehabilitation is more worthwhile, but less emphasized (at least in the US, where I live) than retribution. But if we're beginning the discussion with a complete overhaul of the entire criminal justice system, then I think I'll sit out. I came here to talk about Google's payment authorization scheme.
Have a good day.
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Yeah, that is the state of affairs now. The recommended action is to just not give the device to a child, but are we really supposed to accept this? How does that fit with all the other noble goals of these corporations, like furthering technological awareness. The problem isn't so much this isolated issue, but that Google and their ilk is zig-zagging all over the place, depending on where the profits lie.
If they're actually designing devices with the implied understanding that they are not child safe, why
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the real problem is that parents want to use a phone or tablet as a pacifier, so they don't have to parent the tykes.
Ah yes, the rallying call of the childless. I'm sure that if you ever have kids, you'll have the means and inclination to devote N hours of your own time every day simply to keeping them entertained.
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Yeah, I don't buy that argument, it's a cop out. It's elitist to think that everyone who can't assemble their own gadget from scratch do not deserve to own one, and a mentality that didn't really fit into the real world back in the 90s when it surfaced (with respect to computer gadgets).
Sometimes I wish it would just be that simple, "learn how to use your gadget, or get the fuck out". But it's not, because the majority are people who still don't quite get it all, and they're the one laws are passed to prote
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perhaps they'll just go "old school" and park em in front o a TV set.
Already got burned by something like this when a nephew stayed with us for a few days. Children can be more clever than non-parents expect.
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I've had step kids and I was a kid (as was everyone else at some time) and in neither case did I ever fell I had to keep a child entertained. They will find ways to entertain themselves, the most I recall is making sure what they decided to do for entertainment was non-destructive (or at least limited in it's destructiveness).
However I have seen parents who have decided electronics (tv, game systems, etc) were good baby sitters and those kids tend to loose the ability to entertain themselves. Kids who have
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Re:Please.... (Score:5, Informative)
Children can be more clever than non-parents expect.
Surely, you jest! This is Slashdot, where everybody except actual parents knows the proper way to raise children, and supervision means hovering over your child at all times, never bathing or using the restroom or cooking meals or sleeping.
I'm glad some commenters don't have children, although if they did, they wouldn't sound so high and mighty at times like this. Seriously, my six year old plays outside with neighborhood kids all the time and builds way cooler stuff with Legos than I did at his age, but having other recreational activities didn't stop him from getting his hands on my wife's phone for a few minutes earlier this week and spending $16 on in-app purchases before she stopped him. And that's all because we had the audacity to have an infant that needs more attention when we aren't rich enough to both stay home and hover over the children all day.
We're not going to be joining the class action lawsuit or anything, but it's tiresome to see armchair parents pretend like they could stop it happening. Like most of you we have a lot of devices around, and no matter how well you think you have everything locked down, all it takes is one mistake. This is the only time my son has "accidentally" spent money, and no matter where you want to lay the blame, consider this: if my wife had an iPhone, this wouldn't have happened. Is that really the response you think Google should give?
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. I don't think they understand that "parenting" isn't so well defined.
My kids I do a lot of activities with. Next weekend we're going to the zoo. A few weeks ago we went to the aquarium. I read to them and tell them stories quite frequently.
However, often times they WANT to go do something by themselves. Whether that is playing in the back yard or on the iPad (or more recently the laptop - the 5 year old has gotten pretty proficient with both. She can't even read but she understands how to open the browser and type in "pbskids.org"). You simply can't be there like a hawk for every second without delving into helicopter parenting, which is just a bad idea. At a minimum I should be able to set the tablet so that it asks me for the password EVERY SINGLE TIME you make a purchase.
Its not something that I have to worry about as I generally hate microtransaction games to the point that I don't let them buy anything in them (so I never enter the password the 1st time), but I certainly can see why someone would want this.
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It's not about having "N hours to keeping them entertained", it's about choosing the mode of entertainment. Kids got along just fine before tablets, and in many cases were more social and had more exercise.
I'm not against kids playing games etc - I certainly played enough in my youth - but there are better things than surrounding them with screens 24/7
Nobody is saying that surrounding them with screens 24/7 is the answer. And it's not like other modes of entertainment are without risk. I have to supervise my kid to some extent no matter what he's doing--playing with neighbor kids, making something with glue, paint, scissors, etc., or playing games on the tablet. This isn't about parents abdicating their duties to the tablet. This is about an unreasonable system.
If the intersection by my house had no stop signs, I'd go to the city council and say, "Hey! T
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Kids got along just fine before tablets, and in many cases were more social and had more exercise.
This "good old days" thinking is lazy and often wrong. My kid has basically all the screen time he wants (I don't set limits), but he plays outside with our neighbors for hours a day, running up and down the street or playing basketball. And you may not have noticed it, but games are quite social these days. He's always trading pokemon or game secrets with his friends who play the same games, or even playing some of them online with the neighbors.
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to the detriment of the rest of us.
Yes.
Yes, everyone loves to believe that they are (and always will be) smart and tough enough that THEY don't need any of those pesky nanny-state consumer protection laws. Mr. Galt, is that you?
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Absolutely no fighting over sharing.
Instead, you get fighting over little Timmy spending more than his fair share of the funds attached to the account. Or are you able to tie one account to multiple devices, while each device has its own wallet?
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The main complaint I have about this is that I have no idea why parents are effectively handing their credit card to their children and expect it to be fine.
Because they don't know that that is what they are doing. It is contrary to how we conduct business with credit cards everywhere else. You expect to have to swipe/enter a PIN/sign a document for a transaction to be final, this is how it works in most other settings. Google has violated that expectation by keeping the credit card "alive" for longer than the one transaction, with no sign indicating that that is what is happening.
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what if the cable VOD system needed a pin / buy screen with price of $0 for the free VOD stuff??? VS just need the pin / buy screen for the PPV stuff?
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Think more of a 5 year old or younger. A lot of these games have points or virtual currency of their own - and you can earn that in-game as well. So when something "costs" it's sometimes real and sometimes fake in an attempt to confuse someone at a younger age.
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"I want to buy a horse in this game" ... puts in password....
"How much does it cost?"
"$1.50"
"OK"
kid buys horse. Then something else pops up that says "would you like fancy clothes" and the kid goes for that as well. etc.
Who is being irresponsible here? The parent? Or Google? How tough would it be to have a setting that EACH in-app purchase needs a password, OR in-app purchases are unlocked for X minutes?
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Also, isn't it possible to have a Google Play account without a credit card? Don't they have gift cards you can load on for those without credit cards? If
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Or Google could put in a simple option that says that every in-game purchase requires a password. No need to buy special gift cards or worry that your kid won't even realize he's buying something.
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Re: Please.... (Score:2)
"Who is being irresponsible here? The parent? Or Google?"
The child, and Google for facilitating the child. The parent can lawfully, and in good faith, dispute the charges with their credit card company.
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, Google designed a system that would be a compromise between security and usability since some people would obviously go bat shit if they had to enter their password every time.
That a parent gave this to their child and did not properly supervise them is the parents fault.
Although it would indeed be nice if the parents could indeed have a better monitoring service for kids phones.
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No, Google designed a system that would be a compromise between security and usability since some people would obviously go bat shit if they had to enter their password every time.
No -- you're setting up a false dichotomy. Google could have easily put a little check box or something in the password dialog saying "Remember password to authorize ALL purchases for the next 30 minutes?" kinda like the "keep me logged in" box on webmail accounts or something. That would solve your problem AND make very clear what was happening to users.
After the whole Apple nonsense regarding the exact same issue, that would be at least a minimal attempt to clarify things to users.
That a parent gave this to their child and did not properly supervise them is the parents fault.
That's true. But, i
Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a lot of missing the point on this thread. This problem goes down to the core of the social and psychological problems and tradeoffs that happen in GUI and application design, web design, and any other system that is accessed by members of the general public.
Somewhere there is a manager yelling at a designer because "it's hard to use" because there were complaints from users that they "just put in there password" and "why should I do that again?" when they were making a series of purchases. So the designer incorporated a 30 minute time out or grace period to get around the whining. Sometimes there is no absolute sweet spot... there is going to be whining about the design either way. They probably should incorporate a variable (as someone else on this thread mentioned) so the user has control and Google can say that the user has the power to make a choice.
People are thinking this is deliberate by Google? Bah. Google isn't 100% non-evil, but I don't buy that. They still aren't doing their design in like Microsoft does, in their Marketing department.
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"But your child should be trained to not buy things! You're a bad parent!"
Children are not animals, whipped into learning behaviors. They do not learn as fast as some of you obviously non-parents seem to think. Not to m
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That's really a big leap.
Such a conspiracy would require really high level thinking on Google's point.
More likely, it's just something not thought through.
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Maybe. I've got no inside information to the contrary, but taking a step back and looking at all the little dots that connect to a beautiful line right down into Google's corporate wallet, that is one fortunate series of mishaps, no?
And that still doesn't explain Google's adversarial stance on the issue, if it were just a lapse of judgement, and they really didn't mean to make children rob their parents blind, they would be all over the issue. They aren't, they're willing to go to court to protect their mis
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And of course it's just a coincidence that Google's "incompetence" turned out to be profitable for them.
Re:Please.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I will try to demonstrate this on a particular piece of shite brought to us from the people we love to loathe.
Enter Heroes of Dragon Age. This thing is a deck-building game. Think Hearthstone but the game plays your matches for you. In that respect I would consider it nothing more than an elaborate animated screensaver rather than a game. In HoDA the rarest cards pretty much guarantee your wins. You could grind for months and get lucky and get a couple of them. Or you could cough up monies to buy gems. 99 bucks buy you roughly 20 card draws, 18 of which will not be useful in any way shape or form(+/- statistical variance, but bear with me). You could play matches to earn gold to buy the packs which cost gold but your chance to get anything useful from those is so low that people who get lucky immediately start a forum post about that which in turn will become quite lively. Grinding for gold is a possibility but for one snag. You are limited to 6 PvE and 6PvP matches every two hours. Unless of course you pay gems to play more. So far so bad. The PvE campaign is designed in such a way that you will need the best cards after about an hour of play time. You will encounter multiple major brick walls.
This is one of the freemium offenders I know. I've been grinding as a free player since Christmas since it is a nice diversion which doesn't require a lot of thought or interaction. But I do have to say one thing about this: It smacks of gambling. In fact it is an elaborate variation of a slot machine. And I can see how a gambling addict could sink hundreds if not thousands of dollars into such a thing. And it seems to be completely unregulated.
OTOH if I gave you 99 bucks to spend on games and you headed over to the nearest Steam sale you would get so many games that you wouldn't emerge until next year if you completed them all. No value for a lot of money driven by addiction. Children are the easiest prey for this but certainly not the most lucrative.
So if you compare prices for gems with Steam sales you would think that these are not hardcore gamers. Wrong. Surprisingly so:
http://kotaku.com/who-are-the-... [kotaku.com]
http://www.theguardian.com/tec... [theguardian.com]
We are way, WAY beyond "you morons, stop buying gems!". At this point we are in need of regulation Nevada-style. In the meantime suing Google and Apple is the easiest way to apply some pressure but it sure as hell is not enough.
I would imagine you weren't totally shocked that EA is one of the worst offenders in that particular arena...
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Re:Please.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact is, the parent can't revoke authorization for future in-app purchases after authorizing one. This is something that should be addressed. It has led to sleazy app developers taking advantage of them. It's a trojan horse.
Parents are responsible, yes. And they want a viable option to use that responsibility.
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No supervision? Then its the fucking parents fault. Did they not give the password in the first place? How about parents take some responsibility for knowing what their kids are doing and how payment systems work before handing over the keys.
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The tablets aren't $300 and the children aren't toddlers. Next time you're baffled as to why a lawsuit exists, ask yourself if you have a problem with the actual lawsuit, or the one in your imagination.
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Google didn't reacted following the Apple case? It was just a question of time before the same kind of lawsuit would begin against them...
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I thought Apple also allows a few purchases for x # minutes after the password is entered. I think that was the compromise of no password at all.
Just call the credit card company and tell them (Score:5, Insightful)
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Given that Google will likely have a very clear record that you did indeed authorize the payment this action could very quickly land you in hot water.
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Given that Google will likely have a very clear record that you did indeed authorize the payment this action could very quickly land you in hot water.
No - because if you read TFA people are authorising a payment and google is taking more without authorisation.
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Nope, people *think* they only authorized one payment, because they don't know how the system works.
What they actually are authorizing is a 30 minute windows of purchases.
How can Google fix it? Just remind them at every log-in. "The device will have authorization for payments for the next 30 minutes."
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Or simply add a checkbox to the authorisation form, which must be ticked to enable the 30-minute window.
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It would be quite different. However it would have some similarities to agreeing to a room tab at a hotel that anyone with your room key could use to buy drinks then giving your kid the room key and being surprised when you get billed for the drinks they buy.
I find it one of the amusi
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Given that Google will likely have a very clear record that you did indeed authorize the payment this action could very quickly land you in hot water.
But you didn't. Not if your three year old pressed the button, without you knowing. It's not just a matter of payment. It is a purchase, which is a contract. The payment is just part of that contract. The three year old entered a contract, which as we all should know is voidable for the next fifteen years (when the three year old turned 18). When the contract is voided, any payments have to be repaid.
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This does not make the vendor any more liable than handing your son your credit card and telling him to go buy some ice cream and complaining when he comes back with a shopping trolly of candy. You authorized the payment and handed over the ability to change that payment to a third party. Telling the credit card company that you at this point didn't authorize, especially when in control of the device is committing fraud.
I've actually seen this scenario played out in real terms. When the card was handed over
call Google, did it for me, although authorised (Score:2)
Just call Google and they'll take care of it. I called them the other day when an AUTHORISED purchase was charged to the wrong card. I wanted to switch the charge to a different CC. I had intended to pay with one card (mine), but Wallet had defaulted to another (my employer's). Google refunded it and suggested I pay them again after changing the account settings.
Of they'll refund an AUTHORISED charge I'm sure they'll handle an unauthorised charge.
Re:Just call the credit card company and tell them (Score:5, Insightful)
Just call the credit card company and tell them that you didn't authorise these payments, then tell google you've done that. This puts the ball in google's court - the payment goes into dispute and they need to decide whether to claim that you did authorise the purchase or give you a refund. My money would be on the latter.
Doing this you would be committing fraud against the credit card company and get you in trouble. You did authorise these payments because you logged in your child with proper credentials to shop using your card. That you didn't understand the consequences isn't good enough enough defence. Though I would love to be able to reverse the charges when my wife starts shopping with my logged in credit card enabled account.
It would not be fraud - you authorised one payment then google took the rest without authorisation. I have done this previously with unauthorised follow-up payments and it really goes smoothly, it goes into dispute - the company has a chance to appeal - decides not to - terminates service and refund stands
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But these aren't unauthorized follow-up payments, a person you are responsible for and have logged in with your credit card credentials is sitting and making actual purchases.
I doubt a court would see it this way. I'm sure it wasn't the intent of the account owner to authorize his kid to make any purchases.
Suppose a 10 year old walks up to a cashier at a Walmart, dumps 50 candy bars on the belt, and hands the cashier a credit card with no adult in sight. The cashier rings it up and charges the card. The kid opens all the candy and gives it away to friends, eats it, whatever. Later the adult discovers that the kid took his card out of his wallet when he wasn't looking and com
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But these aren't unauthorized follow-up payments, a person you are responsible for and have logged in with your credit card credentials is sitting and making actual purchases.
I doubt a court would see it this way. I'm sure it wasn't the intent of the account owner to authorize his kid to make any purchases.
Suppose a 10 year old walks up to a cashier at a Walmart, dumps 50 candy bars on the belt, and hands the cashier a credit card with no adult in sight. The cashier rings it up and charges the card. The kid opens all the candy and gives it away to friends, eats it, whatever. Later the adult discovers that the kid took his card out of his wallet when he wasn't looking and complains to his credit card company.
The fact that the kid had the card in no way authorizes its use. In fact, a court would laugh at a cashier not questioning the use of a card by a 10 year old.
In that case, the store could decide to file a criminal complaint against the child. Merchant agreements aside, the clerk has no way of knowing if the parent authorized the use of the card, or even if the card isn't the child's' although a 10 year old would be a bit of a stretch. They accepted it in good faith, if the parent claims fraudulent use then the store could attempt to recover from the child.
I realize your 10 year old example is a bit extreme but it's still fraud. However, plenty of parents let the
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Except Google has no way of knowing if it is the child or the adult using the phone, so it's reasonable to hold the owner responsible in such cases.
Google has an easy way of verifying that the account holder or someone authorized by them is using the phone: require the password. If you don't want to require the password every purchase and want to have a 30 minute grace period after each password entry, put an active notification in the notification bar with a countdown and a way to manually leave the grace period.
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Doesn't this mean that anybody could reverse any online marketplace credit card transaction just blaming their kids? Or even wife, if it wasn't my intent that she used my card for online shopping?
Yes, and that would be fraud: deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
Re: Just call the credit card company and tell the (Score:2)
No. Strictly speaking, the only person authorized to transact purchases on your credit card is you. This is why you need to sign for purchases with a credit card in real life; it's a contract, and at the end of the day the card holder did not consent (contractually) to the purchases and can lawfully dispute the charges. In this instance the child was the one who defrauded the bank. However, because they're not likely to even comprehend the crime they perpetrated the child wound not be prosecuted criminally.
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No - the child would be committing fraud. If you want to put your kid in jail, I guess that's your thing.
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Just make sure you don't value the Google account that the apps were bought on - they would probably shut down the account in retaliation for any chargebacks.
Of course that's true. Personally I think it would teach the kid a lesson if their account was deleted and its not hard to set up another which would be totally unconnected to your credit cards.
Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds awfully familiar... Didn't Apple have this exact same problem?
Thanks, TFA:
The case against Google is similar to one brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against Apple over children's in-app purchases. That case was settled in January and Apple agreed to pay at least US$32.5 million to customers.
Now we need to ask why Google didn't take action to prevent this sort of thing.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we need to ask why Google didn't take action to prevent this sort of thing.
Because the 30 minute *cha-ching!* window was making the corporate overlords and their shareholders cream their jeans?
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This sounds awfully familiar... Didn't Apple have this exact same problem?
Apple did. Past tense. Fixed in iOS 7.1.
Google copying Apple...again (Score:2)
There Google goes again, copying Apple. This time getting themselves sued for the same reason.
Liability should depend on implementation (Score:2)
IF the system asked "do you want us to save your cc# for later purchases?" and they affirmed, it's the parents' problem.
If, OTOH the cc# was saved without advising the user that it WOULD be saved, that's just economic opportunism, and SHOULD be illegal - saving cc# data in a format that it can be executed for a transaction without affirmative confirmation by the sole cardholder is pretty much the same as making a copy of their cc, no?
Simple Checkbox (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the parents? (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, parents can be held in no way responsible for handing their phone to their kids and having their credit card emptied. Same as when I hand my credit card to my kid, it's not my fault when my kid uses it to buy stuff online.
What are these people thinking?
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, parents can be held in no way responsible for handing their phone to their kids and having their credit card emptied. Same as when I hand my credit card to my kid, it's not my fault when my kid uses it to buy stuff online.
What are these people thinking?
That nothing is their, or their kid's fault. It's the same reasoning that blames teachers for bad grades, coaches for not playing their child, cops for giving them a ticket for running a stop sign, etc. Clearly someone else is to blame for their actions.
Protecting us from the stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose then that the responsible thing for a parent to do would be avoid using Google products and services wherever possible, given Google's apparent disinterest in providing software support for responsible parenting.
Do you suppose they'd be OK with that?
Call the carrier (Score:2)
Dad .. Can I? (Score:3)
Oh but why?
No!
But. But.. That's not fair.
Don't care. Grow up unhappy.
Kids need to learn how to say No! to their kids or you end up with shitty grandchildren.
That's my motivation and future investment in people done.
Re: (Score:2)
They engineered it so "no" doesn't work, unless you flat out refuse to ever let you kid use the tablet. If you say "yes" to one purchase - a reward because they've done their chores, whatever - then the tablet silently allows them to buy anything they want for the next 30 minutes.
Better notification of in-app purchases (Score:3)
Too many games are sold for free and/or $0.99 yet to be playable require in app purchases to be at all playable.
I closely control what games my 9 year old can play and review them before we buy them and its impossible to tell which ones will be worth a damn without blowing another $10 in in-app purchases to make them playable. I reject games with what look like too-many in-app purchases, and he doesn't have the ability to make those purchases.
Too often I wind up with a very frustrated 9 year old who's upset that he can't win/progress because the game basically requires in-app purchases to be playable for any length of time.
I don't know if there's a very workable solution, but I think devs should be required to clear notification that "advancement or continued play in this game requires in app purchases; the total cost of this game exceeds its initial purchase price."
Unfortunately the app-store economics were built around the "99 cent" app and apparently its either not viable to make a decent title at that price point nor is it possible to get the sales volume for $5.99 games that actually offer playability when you're competing against a sea of nominal 99 cent games.
Re: (Score:2)
I can see how choosing the right game for your kid can be a challenge. And I'm afraid you will have to carefully choose yourself. Peer pressure at school will be a problem. IMO the freemium model has gotten so bad it needs regulation. It already has become predatory.
From the point of view of the developer (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh... How I would manage to make the application differentiate the father of the child, if the child in question has the credentials and passwords of his father? Is not possible yet to perform miracles.
I believe the issue in questions is NOT that the child can just type in the password and buy stuff. As you say, there's nothing Google can do about that outside of forced fingerprint reading.
BUT that after the parent types in the password to buy the child Angry Birds or whatever... that password is active / cached for another 30 minutes. So when they hand the phone back to the child, he/she can start buying whatever they want for the next half hour. Cartoons, games, music, etc.
Apple does something simila
Lacking Parenting versus Corporate Greed (Score:2)
Hmmmmmm decisions decisions decisions. I look at it this way, both are wrong and at fault.
If a corporation forces you to have a CC on file at all times and then allows a 30 minute window of massive funds spending, then they own some responsibility in all of this. Companies want income this is an easy way of doing it, and by placing the info in the EULA as a default action is just a "F U" consumer, we'll do what we want because we've got you addicted to our product. A CYA would be a user setting that is e
I don't know about the android store, but (Score:2)
On iTunes I set up an account for my son that has no CC tied to it and is funded with gift cards to prevent exactly this. If he blows $50 because he has no idea what he's doing, then who cares?
Re: (Score:3)
This seems easily fixable (Score:2)
Parents could setup an account and fund it with a gift card from Google. That limits the amount of damage that can be done.
If Google requires a credit card to create an account (I do not have a Google Play account so I do not know if that is the case); set the default to require a password before charging the card each time. You could allow users to change that to add a grace period but then they knowingly opened themselves up to multiple charges.
Alternatively, fund the account from one of these prepaid cre
A way to kill this problem DEAD (Score:2)
have a money limit on how much you can buy without entering your password and have a config item for "allow purchases for X minutes after entering password"
The benefit of dedicated gaming devices (Score:2)
Kids are not supposed to touch cell phones, according to the phone insurance people I used to work for. Handing your kid a cell phone completely absolves your insurance company of any liability if the kid breaks it. (Now, it's another story if your child steals it from your purse or whatever.)
Re:Next we should sue the US treasury for issuing (Score:5, Insightful)
Monetary bills are already child-proof in this regard. If I give a child $1 this doesn't cause any other money I may have to spontaneously teleport into the child's possession every time the child approaches a toy or sweet within the next 30 minutes. If the child wants more of my money then he/she will need to ask me again.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A child taking money from your wallet without your knowledge is no different to this situation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That would be the case if you linked their bank card to their Google account, and not your bank card to their Google account, or even gave them access to your bank card on your Google account.
Magical: Gift cards, bitcoins (Score:2)
Are you saying this wouldn't have occurred if only app purchases could be done by magically sending cash over the intertubes?
I agree with BarefootMonkey:
- with actual money (and all its electronic imitations, like gift cards, bitcoin, etc.), the control can't be delegated to someone else. Either you have the token, and you decide to spend it. Or you give the token to someone else, and that someone has 100% control on whatever happens to that token (spend it, keep it for later, etc.), but can't do anything about the other tokens still in you pockets.
- with credit cards (and all electronic equivalent, like TFA's google wallet), you