U.S. federal officials announced Monday that video game giant Epic Games will pay a total of $520 million in fines and refunds to resolve charges involving children's privacy and deceptive sales practises.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, it has obtained two cases from Epic Games Inc., the company that creates the well-known video game Fortnite, with record-breaking settlements.
FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement that "Epic employed privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that deceived Fortnite users, especially teenagers and minors."
The company is refunding $245 million to customers who fell victim to so-called “dark patterns” and billing practices.
Dark patterns are deceptive online techniques used to nudge users into doing things they didn’t intend to do.
The FTC claimed that in this instance, "Fortnite's illogical, inconsistent, and confusing button arrangement led gamers to incur unnecessary charges based on the press of a single button."
“These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers,” the FTC said.
Players might incur charges, for instance, while attempting to start the game from sleep mode, while it was loading, or by tapping a nearby button while merely attempting to preview an item, the statement added.
Players might incur charges, for instance, while attempting to start the game from sleep mode, while it was loading, or by tapping a nearby button while merely attempting to preview an item, the statement added.