Apple Faces Class-Action Suit For In-App Purchases 283
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica:
"Garen Meguerian and a team of lawyers are taking Apple to task for 'inducing' children to spend hundreds of dollars of their parents' money on in-app game purchases. Meguerian filed a class-action lawsuit this week in California, acknowledging that Apple has already addressed the problem, but saying that the company continues to unfairly profit from sales of virtual 'smurfberries' and 'fish bucks.' The issue at hand is related to games that rely on a 'freemium' business model, giving away the game for free on the App Store and relying on in-app purchases of virtual currency, extra levels, or other add-ons as a revenue stream."
Re:Easy Way Out (Score:4, Interesting)
This is one of those issues of parenthood.... My daughter sends some 7K per month. Of those, 2 in the last year were bad (resulting in extra charges). That to me is responsible use. (And lest people start yelling at me about her 'excessive' use, we don't have cable TV, she's on the honor roll and carries an A to A+ average in school, blah, blah, blah. She's not a slacker.)
So imposing draconian limits on her use is not the answer. The fault lies with deceptive and fraudulent marketing tactics. teaching her to be more careful, yes. Punishing, no.
Re:Never mind that fact... (Score:4, Interesting)
But if you want to raise a child and don't want to spawn, it takes $25k and two years and you better have no dings on your mental health record.
We have friends who always wanted to adopt, but they are in a different state working for a few years. There's no point in starting the process there, because when they move (and they'll plan to move), they lose all the money and all the progress and would have to start over.
So they just made their own baby. Of course they can take care of their own, but that means there's some un-adopted baby out there who just lost parents.
Re:Bad parenting (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have kids? If so, do you hover over their shoulders during every activity they undertake?
If you are a parent, then I'd imagine that getting the kids distracted for a couple hours with a silly game (which you have no idea has these revenue traps built in at the outset) lets you get some stuff done around the house or just a few minutes of peace and quiet.
I'm not arguing that the lawsuits aren't frivolous, but blaming the parents for not being omniscient is just plain stupid.