Kid Racks Up $5,900 Bill on Dad's iPad Playing Jurassic World
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2497323,00.asp
While said kid knew his dad's password to get onto the iPad
itself, the dad was surprised to learn that his son had also
memorized his Apple ID password. And, in doing so, he was able
to bypass any restrictions his father had placed on the device
and buy whatever he wanted in the game. The damage? The son
made 65 transactions between December 13 and December 18--that's
a lot of dinosaurs--to the tune of L4,000, or just around
$5,900. Shugaa is apparently upset that Apple didn't do
anything to verify that the many, many purchases made over that
small time period were actually him.
- - -
I'm sorry, I consider these games to essentially be scams, and the
companies that take their cuts from the associated in-app revenues are
at the very least complicit in situations like this one. Busy parents
cannot be expected to monitor this stuff on top of everything else they
have to do. The entire in-app purchase ecosystem -- especially for
games -- has turned into an unethical mess.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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