Canadians have recently voiced their concerns about the mismanagement of in-app sales. Many incidents have been reported in the news where children have unknowingly spent hundreds of dollars in purchases that have been made through an app instead of through the app store. A recent story of a Newfoundland woman whose children spent more than $3000 while playing the infamous Clash of Clans game on their mothers iPad grabbed the lime light nationwide last month. According to the CEO and founder of App Promo, these sorts of incidents should not worry the mobile industry.
According to Yentin, these incidents won’t have a major toll on the industry and parents should be more careful and proactive as far as their children are concerned. “It’s a wakeup call for parents” said Yentin as he emphasized that parents need to be more responsible. Yentin strongly believes that action taken against app developers is highly unlikely in Canada whereas the British Government’s Office of Fair Trading is taking the in-app sales scenario under consideration.
The Canadian Competition Bureau which unlike the British Office of Fair Trading only enforces federal laws, has refused any indications that they’re investigating these in-app sale issues.
TechVibes states that, “In the United States, Apple is in the process of settling a $100 million lawsuit brought by parents whose children made in-app purchases without their knowledge. The claims in the suit are related to an iTunes store practice that kept users logged in for 15 minutes, allowing single click purchases by children. Two years ago, Apple implemented parental controls that when activated, require users to enter their password before making any purchases.”
More often than not, Children know their parents/mobile owners passwords and enter this data to make purchases like in the case of Newfoundland lady. Despite this fact, Supercell, maker of Clash of Clans, returned the family’s money. Techvibes goes on to say that, “For Yentin, that’s why it comes down to parental responsibility. He said these sorts of things won’t happen if parents monitor what their kids are playing. And he thinks the highly publicized nature of these cases could help. “It’s good for the industry to raise awareness,” he says.”
Even if Canada doesn’t introduce stricter regulations, Canadian app manufacturers who are targeting a US audience will have to deal with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Changes to the American law, which went into effect on July 1, set stricter conditions on the collection and usage of private information on users under 13, including a requirement that app makers receive parental consent to collect information.”
Yentin believes that marketing of apps is crucial for app developers to succeed and without proper campaign planning, they are unlikely to succeed. With competitors like Supercell, competition is getting tougher and app developers need to put their game face on.
Source: TechVibes
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