13 ms·

Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations

163 points by jmsflknr 4y ago

rvz 4y ago
Good. It is also time to do the same to TikTok and fine them for abusing the privacy of its users in the billions of dollars. They have been caught once [0] and have been caught again this year [1] and generally have lied about accessing the sensitive data of it's own users [2], [3], [4]. Clearly the fines in [0] and [1] are extremely low and the fine must increase in the billions since these are repeated privacy violations and haven't learned anything from it. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-pr... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-children-privacy-fine-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-childre... [2] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans [3] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-... [4] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-permission-to-collect-biometric-data-on-u-s-users-including-faceprints-and-voiceprints/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-pe...
- Bombthecat 4y ago
  Fortnite made 4 billion Each Year You think that will change future behavior? I doubt it.
  - rvz 4y ago
    That's the whole point. They can afford the fine, especially in the billions of dollars just like what Facebook has done for repeat violations and it should be the standard fine for billion-dollar companies.
  - jasmer 4y ago
    $520M is a pinch, I can assure you it will change their behaviour in some ways. I worked at a company where this happened, the legal polices that came afterwards were actually prohibitive. We couldn't shit without a lawyer. CEOs have bosses and they don't like to lose money like this - it's a 'headline' loss as well, making it feel worse. What remains to be seen is the nature of the change because so often it's just an over/under or 'bad' reaction, rarely do they get it right unfortunately.
    - robswc 4y ago
      They may have already made the changes. I started playing again and I've found they're pretty damn fair with pricing. You can "earn" the currency to buy the skins. I never really buy much though but at least it feels fair. I also never got "confused" about purchasing things but this is 2022 UI/UX.
      - jasmer 4y ago
        It has to be 'fair and obvious' to the reptilian brain. We are all busy. We don't have time to learn where all the buttons are, what leads to what. I see my elderly parents confused and bewildered. Now I see myself bewildered on new apps that I just don't care to bother to learn. Even Skype - the UI changes so often, every time I use it, I don't know WTF is going on. I can't find how to make the call, put on hold. On my iPhone if I get a call while a call is incoming, I'm immediately pressed to 'MAKE A DECISION NOW!' with a bewildering array of choices while an alarm and buzzer says 'HURRY!'. When am I supposed to learn how all of that works? By 'practising' incoming calls? Technology is exploding, it's becoming too much for all of us - trust me there will come a time where you 'do not give a nut' about learning the UX for the next new thing, and then you're in trouble. Given this I think we need to rethink UI a bit or stick to first principles. And anything that involves privacy or money has to stick to those principles.
Gareth321 4y ago
I'm fine with Epic getting financially reprimanded for dark patterns and anti-consumer behaviour. I am not on board with this: > That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling real-time voice and text chat communications for children and teens in the game by default. So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all children across America? How on earth is this supposed to be policed? Should everyone playing a game be required to upload ID? And what is the gate between on and off by default? A single button press? This one doesn't make any sense to me. Voice chat is a staple of online games. Having a core feature included in a game by default is common sense.
- jerrygenser 4y ago
  Can it be off by default but the user can enable it manually? Does it say it's off unless age verified or just off by default?
- BryantD 4y ago
  If this is a COPPA issue, you just have to ask for birth year and you’re allowed to trust the answer.
  - tyleo 4y ago
    Yeah, I don’t know what the big deal is with people in this thread saying, “bah, this is impossible” but I work on a COPPA compliant game and “chat off for kids by default” is absolutely a must.
    - dagmx 4y ago
      It’s because a lot of engineers get hung up in the “oh there’s so many ways to defeat this” mindset, and forget that perfect is the enemy of good. Sensible defaults are a good enough start and many regulations like this are based around best efforts , not absolute perfection.
      - BryantD 4y ago
        Yup. It’s both true that the age gate is easy to defeat and that it helps in practice.
josephd79 4y ago
- jsnell 4y ago
  Lawyers will get nothing. This was the FTC, not a class action lawsuit with lawyers working on contingency. About half the amount is going to refunds to consumers.
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  $245 million is earmarked for customer refunds. The FTC has set up a website for players to request refunds...your claim is false.
- BryantD 4y ago
  You’re not wrong about it being an easy fine to pay. But the meat of this is in the rest of the consent decree; Epic is under a 20 year order to maintain good privacy policies, report on them regularly, use a third party auditor (approved by the FTC), and so on. This is not trivial work and from experience the FTC takes these seriously. It’s corrective justice, not punitive. The FTC is prioritizing prevention of future incidents above making Epic feel pain.
AlexandrB 4y ago
This kind of stuff is just the tip of the iceberg in the gaming industry. I really hope someone takes a close look at gacha and unregulated gambling (e.g. CS:GO skins gambling) soon.
breezeitall 4y ago
Privacy part, sure if true. I'd argue it doesn't make sense to charge them more than what Google paid, which used the data for ads. Epic I'd imagine uses the data more for tracking dau and less nasty reasons. For the second part of tricking millions of players into making unintended purchases, idk about this one. In Fortnite for example, it's pretty transparent when you are paying real money. You either buy v-bucks to then purchase skins. Or you buy the season pass once and it's clear real money is involved. Anytime I talk with kids, it seems like they are fully aware it takes real money to buy them and they are either saving up or asking their parents for b-day/Christmas to get v-bucks or the season pass.
impoppy 4y ago
Hopefully FTC is eventually taking action against Adobe as well.
Bud 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ur-whale 4y ago
https://archive.ph/V3NQ5 https://archive.ph/V3NQ5
- some_furry 4y ago
  Thank you!
zx10rse 4y ago
Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal. Really a good start, but if they are serious about doing something they should start looking at other companies too, and put in place big fines if you continue to implement such patterns in your games. Don't even get me started on loot boxes and their gambling patterns, I have no sympathy for companies using such practices, and they deserve every single fine and a bit more.
- richbell 4y ago
  > Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal. While I'm sure it's been discussed to death already, if anyone isn't familiar with the predatory design of Diablo Immortal I'd recommend this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs
dagmx 4y ago
Epic’s own PR statement on this is worth a read https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlement-and-moving-beyond-long-standing-industry-practices https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlemen...
- bioemerl 4y ago
  There are so many immidiate contractions in this thing it makes my head spin. Like one section here says "no loot boxes since 2019 and never gambling" Loot boxes are gambling. "We respect our players by making our game pay to win" But when we breed a culture of bullying and use behavioral science to get you to purchase cosmetics, that's fine. Slimy, the whole game industry is slimy.
  - wilg 4y ago
    Loot boxes are generally not considered gambling because you don't wager anything and don't win money. They are very much like a kids version of gambling though!
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      I would say that anything using skinner's box style methods to encourage people to repeat an action, and when there is money involved in that process at all, for example if you can buy the results of the loot boxes or you can buy the loot boxes themselves, it's gambling. Epic allowed you to purchase loot boxes and get a random chance to get the thing you wanted as a result. If it's something you can't pay for and it's intended to be a part of the way the game works, it's not intended to push you into spending money or anything like that, that's fine. Loot boxes are fun at the end of the day. That's not what this was though, this was gambling.
      - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
        It's about the legal definition of gambling rather than the human understanding of it. It's slimy, but per the legal definition, it isn't gambling. Should it be illegal? personally, I think if it's targetted at children then yes.
superkuh 4y ago
I'm still waiting for something to be done about Epic buying video games that support multi-platform like Rocket League then removing multi-platform support from those games. I bought Rocket League. I played Rocket League. Epic bought Rocket League and suddenly I couldn't play Rocket League. And I'm just left hanging with a useless "single player" rocket league that can no longer play the game. Epic is as much of a monster or worse than Microsoft was in it's prime. It buys games then puts them behind it's paywall, ruining the games for people that bought them before. It uses it's Unreal game engine position to attack companies that make games in it's engine by releasing clones of them (ie, the Fortnite copy of PUBG). It sells games like Fortnite which I bought for $40+ back before it was popular, then it completely changes the game and makes it impossible for me to continue playing the game I bought. I will never, ever, give any Epic software a place on any of my computers. Not buying, not "free", not anything. They still owe me $35 for stealing Rocket League and $44 for taking away Fortnite (the original game).
- flyingpenguin 4y ago
  You did not buy a guaranteed life-long access to online Rocket League in all its future forms. Your purchase of Rocket League came with access to the online service as it currently stands as a trust only relationship between you and the owners of the online Rocket League service. I understand your pain here, and I don't want to defend Epic games, but as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to have their costs or development requirements exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire to do so.
  - CivBase 4y ago
    > as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to have their costs or development requirements exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire to do so I'd argue the expectation of a multi-billion dollar corporation to maintain an online service feature for a paid product that they are still actively providing on other platforms is pretty reasonable. And that expectation should not add any risk of liability for individuals like you shutting down free online services. It would come down to how the theoretical law was written. But just because a law can be written poorly doesn't mean we should seek to maintain the status quo.
Bangladoor 4y ago
GeekyBear 4y ago
>Until late 2018, for instance, Epic automatically stored the credit card information for anyone who made a single purchase in Fortnite and didn't require the CVV security information for further purchases. That made it easy for many children to make additional purchases without their parents' consent, according to the FTC. Epic also drew criticism from the FTC for putting the "Purchase" button for in-game items right next to the "preview styles" button and offering no subsequent purchase confirmation prompt in the case of misplaced clicks. And while Epic introduced an "Undo Purchase" button in July 2019, it was eventually made much less prominent and harder for customers to find. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/epic-will-pay-520-million-to-settle-ftc-privacy-payment-complaints https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/epic-will-pay-520-mil... This is a company that should be able to bypass app store restrictions?
- lapcat 4y ago
  > This is a company that should be able to bypass app store restrictions? Every company should be able to bypass app store restrictions. I don't think the question is even framed correctly. Every iPhone owner should be able to bypass app store restrictions. Developers doing so is just a consequence of consumer choice.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    Sorry, but I prefer the ability to do things like easily reverse fraudulent in app purchases, instantly cancel subscriptions without a hassle, and say no to location tracking without the app in question being allowed to drop functionality if I do so.
    - kevingadd 4y ago
      Tracking protection can and should be done at the OS level, not at the store level. Even Windows has this. Canceling a Fortnite subscription is as simple via them as it is on any other storefront: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c5719335176219/fortnite-crew-c5719379485083/how-can-i-cancel-my-fortnite-crew-subscription-a5720438130715 https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c5719335176219... So all that's left is reversing purchases. You can do that through your bank or credit card issuer for any fraudulent purchase, if you want Apple to act as that gatekeeper instead you should make purchases via Apple. Are you saying all vendors should be required to hand 30% of all their revenues to Apple so it is slightly easier for you to reverse a purchase, even though there are already well-tested universal channels for doing it? I've had to reverse purchases before without dealing with Apple and it has always been a smooth process. Basically your argument seems to boil down to "my convenience justifies a 30% tax on all app developers". Are you in favor of moves like Apple requiring a 30% tax on IRL event tickets sold via services like Facebook, even though Apple provides no services to the live event operator other than payment processing? Apple even prohibited Facebook from disclosing the tax's existence.
deafpolygon 4y ago
Shitty company gets caught doing shitty things. Not surprised.
mugivarra69 4y ago
and no speaking of 10tonn elefant, apple
weberer 4y ago
https://archive.vn/V3NQ5 https://archive.vn/V3NQ5

163 points by jmsflknr 4y ago

rvz 4y ago

Good. It is also time to do the same to TikTok and fine them for abusing the privacy of its users in the billions of dollars. They have been caught once [0] and have been caught again this year [1] and generally have lied about accessing the sensitive data of it's own users [2], [3], [4]. Clearly the fines in [0] and [1] are extremely low and the fine must increase in the billions since these are repeated privacy violations and haven't learned anything from it. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/technology/tiktok-kids-pr... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-children-privacy-fine-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/26/technology/tiktok-childre... [2] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans [3] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-... [4] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-permission-to-collect-biometric-data-on-u-s-users-including-faceprints-and-voiceprints/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-pe...

Bombthecat 4y ago
Fortnite made 4 billion Each Year You think that will change future behavior? I doubt it.
- rvz 4y ago
  That's the whole point. They can afford the fine, especially in the billions of dollars just like what Facebook has done for repeat violations and it should be the standard fine for billion-dollar companies.
- jasmer 4y ago
  $520M is a pinch, I can assure you it will change their behaviour in some ways. I worked at a company where this happened, the legal polices that came afterwards were actually prohibitive. We couldn't shit without a lawyer. CEOs have bosses and they don't like to lose money like this - it's a 'headline' loss as well, making it feel worse. What remains to be seen is the nature of the change because so often it's just an over/under or 'bad' reaction, rarely do they get it right unfortunately.
  - robswc 4y ago
    They may have already made the changes. I started playing again and I've found they're pretty damn fair with pricing. You can "earn" the currency to buy the skins. I never really buy much though but at least it feels fair. I also never got "confused" about purchasing things but this is 2022 UI/UX.
    - jasmer 4y ago
      It has to be 'fair and obvious' to the reptilian brain. We are all busy. We don't have time to learn where all the buttons are, what leads to what. I see my elderly parents confused and bewildered. Now I see myself bewildered on new apps that I just don't care to bother to learn. Even Skype - the UI changes so often, every time I use it, I don't know WTF is going on. I can't find how to make the call, put on hold. On my iPhone if I get a call while a call is incoming, I'm immediately pressed to 'MAKE A DECISION NOW!' with a bewildering array of choices while an alarm and buzzer says 'HURRY!'. When am I supposed to learn how all of that works? By 'practising' incoming calls? Technology is exploding, it's becoming too much for all of us - trust me there will come a time where you 'do not give a nut' about learning the UX for the next new thing, and then you're in trouble. Given this I think we need to rethink UI a bit or stick to first principles. And anything that involves privacy or money has to stick to those principles.

Gareth321 4y ago

I'm fine with Epic getting financially reprimanded for dark patterns and anti-consumer behaviour. I am not on board with this: > That lawsuit also accused the company of illegally enabling real-time voice and text chat communications for children and teens in the game by default. So voice chat must now be turned off by default for all children across America? How on earth is this supposed to be policed? Should everyone playing a game be required to upload ID? And what is the gate between on and off by default? A single button press? This one doesn't make any sense to me. Voice chat is a staple of online games. Having a core feature included in a game by default is common sense.

jerrygenser 4y ago
Can it be off by default but the user can enable it manually? Does it say it's off unless age verified or just off by default?
BryantD 4y ago
If this is a COPPA issue, you just have to ask for birth year and you’re allowed to trust the answer.
- tyleo 4y ago
  Yeah, I don’t know what the big deal is with people in this thread saying, “bah, this is impossible” but I work on a COPPA compliant game and “chat off for kids by default” is absolutely a must.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    It’s because a lot of engineers get hung up in the “oh there’s so many ways to defeat this” mindset, and forget that perfect is the enemy of good. Sensible defaults are a good enough start and many regulations like this are based around best efforts , not absolute perfection.
    - BryantD 4y ago
      Yup. It’s both true that the age gate is easy to defeat and that it helps in practice.

josephd79 4y ago

jsnell 4y ago
Lawyers will get nothing. This was the FTC, not a class action lawsuit with lawyers working on contingency. About half the amount is going to refunds to consumers.
boeingUH60 4y ago
$245 million is earmarked for customer refunds. The FTC has set up a website for players to request refunds...your claim is false.
BryantD 4y ago
You’re not wrong about it being an easy fine to pay. But the meat of this is in the rest of the consent decree; Epic is under a 20 year order to maintain good privacy policies, report on them regularly, use a third party auditor (approved by the FTC), and so on. This is not trivial work and from experience the FTC takes these seriously. It’s corrective justice, not punitive. The FTC is prioritizing prevention of future incidents above making Epic feel pain.

AlexandrB 4y ago

This kind of stuff is just the tip of the iceberg in the gaming industry. I really hope someone takes a close look at gacha and unregulated gambling (e.g. CS:GO skins gambling) soon.

breezeitall 4y ago

Privacy part, sure if true. I'd argue it doesn't make sense to charge them more than what Google paid, which used the data for ads. Epic I'd imagine uses the data more for tracking dau and less nasty reasons. For the second part of tricking millions of players into making unintended purchases, idk about this one. In Fortnite for example, it's pretty transparent when you are paying real money. You either buy v-bucks to then purchase skins. Or you buy the season pass once and it's clear real money is involved. Anytime I talk with kids, it seems like they are fully aware it takes real money to buy them and they are either saving up or asking their parents for b-day/Christmas to get v-bucks or the season pass.

impoppy 4y ago

Hopefully FTC is eventually taking action against Adobe as well.

Bud 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ur-whale 4y ago

https://archive.ph/V3NQ5 https://archive.ph/V3NQ5

some_furry 4y ago
Thank you!

zx10rse 4y ago

Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal. Really a good start, but if they are serious about doing something they should start looking at other companies too, and put in place big fines if you continue to implement such patterns in your games. Don't even get me started on loot boxes and their gambling patterns, I have no sympathy for companies using such practices, and they deserve every single fine and a bit more.

richbell 4y ago
> Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal. While I'm sure it's been discussed to death already, if anyone isn't familiar with the predatory design of Diablo Immortal I'd recommend this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTs

dagmx 4y ago

Epic’s own PR statement on this is worth a read https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlement-and-moving-beyond-long-standing-industry-practices https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlemen...

bioemerl 4y ago
There are so many immidiate contractions in this thing it makes my head spin. Like one section here says "no loot boxes since 2019 and never gambling" Loot boxes are gambling. "We respect our players by making our game pay to win" But when we breed a culture of bullying and use behavioral science to get you to purchase cosmetics, that's fine. Slimy, the whole game industry is slimy.
- wilg 4y ago
  Loot boxes are generally not considered gambling because you don't wager anything and don't win money. They are very much like a kids version of gambling though!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    I would say that anything using skinner's box style methods to encourage people to repeat an action, and when there is money involved in that process at all, for example if you can buy the results of the loot boxes or you can buy the loot boxes themselves, it's gambling. Epic allowed you to purchase loot boxes and get a random chance to get the thing you wanted as a result. If it's something you can't pay for and it's intended to be a part of the way the game works, it's not intended to push you into spending money or anything like that, that's fine. Loot boxes are fun at the end of the day. That's not what this was though, this was gambling.
    - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
      It's about the legal definition of gambling rather than the human understanding of it. It's slimy, but per the legal definition, it isn't gambling. Should it be illegal? personally, I think if it's targetted at children then yes.

superkuh 4y ago

I'm still waiting for something to be done about Epic buying video games that support multi-platform like Rocket League then removing multi-platform support from those games. I bought Rocket League. I played Rocket League. Epic bought Rocket League and suddenly I couldn't play Rocket League. And I'm just left hanging with a useless "single player" rocket league that can no longer play the game. Epic is as much of a monster or worse than Microsoft was in it's prime. It buys games then puts them behind it's paywall, ruining the games for people that bought them before. It uses it's Unreal game engine position to attack companies that make games in it's engine by releasing clones of them (ie, the Fortnite copy of PUBG). It sells games like Fortnite which I bought for $40+ back before it was popular, then it completely changes the game and makes it impossible for me to continue playing the game I bought. I will never, ever, give any Epic software a place on any of my computers. Not buying, not "free", not anything. They still owe me $35 for stealing Rocket League and $44 for taking away Fortnite (the original game).

flyingpenguin 4y ago
You did not buy a guaranteed life-long access to online Rocket League in all its future forms. Your purchase of Rocket League came with access to the online service as it currently stands as a trust only relationship between you and the owners of the online Rocket League service. I understand your pain here, and I don't want to defend Epic games, but as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to have their costs or development requirements exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire to do so.
- CivBase 4y ago
  > as someone who has created multiple free cloud services only to have their costs or development requirements exceed my ability to maintain them I am weary of anything that would legally require me to maintain a cloud service past my desire to do so I'd argue the expectation of a multi-billion dollar corporation to maintain an online service feature for a paid product that they are still actively providing on other platforms is pretty reasonable. And that expectation should not add any risk of liability for individuals like you shutting down free online services. It would come down to how the theoretical law was written. But just because a law can be written poorly doesn't mean we should seek to maintain the status quo.

Bangladoor 4y ago

GeekyBear 4y ago

>Until late 2018, for instance, Epic automatically stored the credit card information for anyone who made a single purchase in Fortnite and didn't require the CVV security information for further purchases. That made it easy for many children to make additional purchases without their parents' consent, according to the FTC. Epic also drew criticism from the FTC for putting the "Purchase" button for in-game items right next to the "preview styles" button and offering no subsequent purchase confirmation prompt in the case of misplaced clicks. And while Epic introduced an "Undo Purchase" button in July 2019, it was eventually made much less prominent and harder for customers to find. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/epic-will-pay-520-million-to-settle-ftc-privacy-payment-complaints https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/12/epic-will-pay-520-mil... This is a company that should be able to bypass app store restrictions?

lapcat 4y ago
> This is a company that should be able to bypass app store restrictions? Every company should be able to bypass app store restrictions. I don't think the question is even framed correctly. Every iPhone owner should be able to bypass app store restrictions. Developers doing so is just a consequence of consumer choice.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  Sorry, but I prefer the ability to do things like easily reverse fraudulent in app purchases, instantly cancel subscriptions without a hassle, and say no to location tracking without the app in question being allowed to drop functionality if I do so.
  - kevingadd 4y ago
    Tracking protection can and should be done at the OS level, not at the store level. Even Windows has this. Canceling a Fortnite subscription is as simple via them as it is on any other storefront: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c5719335176219/fortnite-crew-c5719379485083/how-can-i-cancel-my-fortnite-crew-subscription-a5720438130715 https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/fortnite-c5719335176219... So all that's left is reversing purchases. You can do that through your bank or credit card issuer for any fraudulent purchase, if you want Apple to act as that gatekeeper instead you should make purchases via Apple. Are you saying all vendors should be required to hand 30% of all their revenues to Apple so it is slightly easier for you to reverse a purchase, even though there are already well-tested universal channels for doing it? I've had to reverse purchases before without dealing with Apple and it has always been a smooth process. Basically your argument seems to boil down to "my convenience justifies a 30% tax on all app developers". Are you in favor of moves like Apple requiring a 30% tax on IRL event tickets sold via services like Facebook, even though Apple provides no services to the live event operator other than payment processing? Apple even prohibited Facebook from disclosing the tax's existence.

deafpolygon 4y ago

Shitty company gets caught doing shitty things. Not surprised.

mugivarra69 4y ago

and no speaking of 10tonn elefant, apple

weberer 4y ago

https://archive.vn/V3NQ5 https://archive.vn/V3NQ5