Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Disaffirming kids' iTunes purchases

Post by Venkat Balasubramani on the court decision declining to dismiss the key California unfair competition/false advertising claims. Respectfully, I'm surprised he thinks Apple couldn't have anticipated this.  Apple famously has rigid controls on its app store (though directed at porn rather than at fleecing kids, apparently) and famously takes a bite of in-app purchases which it therefore has many a reason to encourage.  What, exactly, was not easy to anticipate about what would happen with "free" games suitable for kids allowing easy in-app purchases (when the phone's been handed over to the kid)?  Apple has enough economic incentives that I doubt it will readily change its defaults--so I recommend that you do so if you have kids!

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