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| Mobile Minute: The Mobile Minute is sponsored by SpiderCloud Wireless The Federal Trade Commission says that Amazon.com has been billing account holders for in-app purchases that they never authorized. The vast majority of the charges occur when a child makes an in-app purchase while playing a game on an Amazon Kindle tablet. The FTC says that many games give kids the option to “buy” various tokens, and that often children may not know when they are spending real money. More than one parent told the agency that children who could not even read were randomly clicking buttons and buying things. Whether children know what they’re spending or not, parents do not know, according to the FTC, and should not have to pay the charges. The agency wants Amazon to issue refunds to “affected parents” and to solicit permission for all future in-app purchases. (This is typically done by asking for a password.) It is not clear whether the FTC wants Amazon to refund to parents all the money their kids spent on in-app purchases, or just the portion that Amazon kept. |
Other top stories: Verizon claims more than 72,500 government subpoenas received this year Verizon noted that the most recent information requests were connected to just 0.1% of its U.S. customers. … Read MoreVodafone taps Alcatel-Lucent for Project Spring small cells The vendor will be able to bid on metro cell deployments in all countries in which Vodafone is deploying. In other news from Europe, the UK may pass emergency legislation that would impact carriers. … Read More Alcatel-Lucent small cells integrated with Ericsson LTE network As operators build heterogeneous networks to expand coverage and capacity, they are ready to work with multiple vendors. … Read More |
