Variety is the Forbes or Fortune of the entertainment industry and last week published reporting claiming the media has unearthed court documents
charging that “Facebook Used Games to Bilk Millions of Dollars from Children”
and when caught “Rejected Internal Solutions.”
Bilking kids as young as 5 years old is a new low for social media.
Here’s
a sample of the reporting:
“...Facebook
created a system that allowed children to spend tens of millions of dollars
through their parents’ credit cards and Paypal accounts on games and other
goods without their parents’ knowledge and, despite concerns raised by game
developers and solutions suggested by internal analysts, did nothing to fix the
issue, according to a trove of documents unsealed from a 2012 class action
lawsuit.
“...The
more-than 150 pages of depositions, analysis, internal reports, and exhibits
were unsealed following a motion filed by the Center for Investigative
Reporting’s Reveal publication in the
Bohannon vs. Facebook case. The documents seem to lay out a clear timeline of
how Facebook reshaped itself to open access to its once adult-only website to
children, clearing the way for significant unauthorized spending.
“Reached
for comment Friday by Variety, Facebook shared the following:
“
‘We were contacted by the Center for Investigative Reporting last year, and we
voluntarily unsealed documents related to a 2012 case about our refund policies
for in-app purchases that parents believe were made in error by their minor
children. We have now released additional documents as instructed by the court.
Facebook works with parents and experts to offer tools for families navigating
Facebook and the web. As part of that work, we routinely examine our own
practices, and in 2016 agreed to update our terms and provide dedicated
resources for refund requests related to purchases made by minors on Facebook.’
”
To
learn what is considered “friendly fraud” read Brian Crecente’s complete
article in Variety: Click Here.
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