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Fortnite: Epic Games Will Pay Record Fines

Fortnite: Epic Games pays record fine for child protection violations

The company Epic Games is known in our blog mainly because of the lengthy court dispute with Apple over regulations in the App Store. Now Epic Games is also making a name for itself elsewhere, and not necessarily in a positive way.

As reported by the Tagesschau, among others, Epic Games has to pay a fine of 520 million US dollars (about 491 million euros) due to violations of child protection law in the USA. According to the Tagesschau in the industry, this is a record high comparison.

The US Consumer Protection Agency (FTC) has announced the fine. The sum is divided into a fine of USD 275 million and repayments to those affected totaling USD 245 million. A federal court must approve it before the fine can be imposed. The comparison was made between the Justice Department, the FTC and Epic Games.

“According to the allegations, Epic Games collected the data of Fortnite players under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent or informing the parents as required by law. The company also harmed children and young people by putting them in contact with adult gamers in chats. […] In the course of the comparison, Epic Games will change its default settings to better protect minors.

The authority also accuses Epic Games of having tricked minors and adults into making purchases at Fortnite that they had not actually intended. For children, this resulted in “unauthorized costs without any involvement of parents,” the FTC said. The $245 million repayment is based on this allegation.”

“Children and teens have been bullied, threatened, harassed and exposed to dangerous and psychologically traumatizing issues such as suicide on ‘Fortnite,'” the FTC said. After the dispute between Apple and Epic Games, Fortnite is still not available in the German App Store and can only be downloaded from the Google Play Store for mobile devices.

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