Amazon May Be Forced To Issue Refunds for In-App Purchases

A federal judge laid the blame squarely on Amazon today in a ruling, blaming it for the in-app purchases mistakenly made by kids. Today’s ruling merely blames Amazon for all of this but a subsequent order could force the company to issue refunds for all of those in-app purchases that were unknowingly made by kids. This case against Amazon was brought by the Federal Trade Commission.

The basic question, in this case, was whether the free to download apps were clearly marked as containing in-app purchases and whether Amazon put adequate protections in place to ensure that children could not make unapproved in-app purchases without the consent or the knowledge of their parents.

The federal judge who gave this ruling finds fault with Amazon, but also granted the company a partial summary judgement against the FTC’s claim for injunctive relief because the judge didn’t see this problem recurring in the future. The Court does not find this to represent a cognizable danger of a recurring violation,” the ruling reads.

Amazon has the right to appeal the decision even though it hasn’t been decided yet what the amount of the settlement is going to be from which affected parties will be paid compensation. The FTC has previously brought similar cases against Apple and Google in which it claims more than $50 million were refunded to affected customers.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Amazon, Apps, ftc