ACCC to investigate apps for children
Tuesday 10 September 2013 @ 11.01 a.m. | Trade & Commerce
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has joined an intensive international mission to pinpoint smartphone and tablet apps that may mislead children into making unauthorised in-app purchases. More than 50 consumer protection agencies internationally are looking through online stores for apps that appear to be free but fail to disclose that substantial in-app purchases are necessary to optimise the app's user experience.
Moreover, the ACCC and other agencies have engaged with platform operators, such as Apple and Google to improve education and safeguard consumers.
According to ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard consumers need to be mindful that ‘free’ might not mean free. Games and apps in the ‘free’ section of an online store may free to download but require costly in-app purchases. The target market for some of these apps is young children, who do not necessarily make the connection between the game they are playing and spending their parents’ money in the real world.
“I have heard from concerned parents whose children have been caught out with unfamiliar technology and racking up a sky-high credit card bill. A child can unwittingly make one in-app purchase costing $100 or 100 in-app purchases costing $1 each.”
One area of particular concern for the ACCC is that while most smart devices require users to enter in a password before downloading an app, further purchases can frequently be made for 15 to 30 minutes without re-entering the password.
Apple users can modify this by setting restrictions to require a password for every purchase or disabling in-app purchases. Google users can set a password restriction to require a password for each purchase, subject to a thirty minute time period after each purchase is made.
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