Amazon doesn’t want to obey the increasing regulatory pressure. Instead of agreeing to an undisclosed settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Internet merchant will face the jury.
Amazon will be brought into court in the U.S. by the FTC. The consumer protection authority complained that minors are allowed to make purchases via the Amazon’s mobile apps without their parents’ consent. The FTC is seeking a court order against the company imposing refunds to the affected families. The complaining parents said that their children spent hundreds of dollars without their consent.
The Amazon-FTC dispute is related to in-app charges in children’s games on Kindle devices.  The government is suing the company  for allowing children to spend millions of dollars in purchases on the credit cards of their unsuspecting parents while playing mobile apps.
Actually, when the in-app charges were introduced, a password was not required to make any purchase which didn’t exceed $99. Amazon updated its password protection in 2013 in a way that still allowed windows of time where children could make purchases, according to the lawsuit. A similar case was settled with Apple Inc last January but the company of the Silicon Valley agreed to refund the unauthorized charges to the families.
Unfortunately, Amazon didn’t agree the undisclosed settlement with FTC and declined any comment. The response of the vice president of the company, Andrew DeVore, was that the FTC threat to sue « leaves us no choice but to defend our approach in court. »
 
Viktoriya DZHELEPOVA
Etudiante en Master 2 Droit de l’économie numérique