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America December 18, 2022 2 mins read

Fortnite Developer To Pay $520 Million in Fines for Violating the COPPA

America ı By Rochdi Rais

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Fortnite Via Unsplash erik-mclean-

Epic Games, the developer and publisher of the video game Fornite, will pay $520 million in fines to settle with the FTC over violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The FTC had accused Epic of pairing children and teens “with strangers,” exposing them to “dangerous and psychologically traumatizing issues,” and failing to introduce adequate parental control systems.

“Protecting the public, and especially children, from online privacy invasions and dark patterns is a top priority for the Commission, and these enforcement actions make clear to businesses that the FTC is cracking down on these unlawful practices,” FTC chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

Epic will pay two fines, including a $245 million fine against Fortnite’s in-game store and refund systems, and another $275 million fine to address child privacy concerns.

The FTC said Epic failed to “cure,” or address, COPPA violations. The FTC called Epic’s attempts to address the harassment issue on-platform as “weak-willed,” noting that it took two years after launch for Epic to “finally [introduce] parental controls to the game.”

“All the while, kids have been bullied, threatened, and harassed, including sexually, through Fortnite,” the FTC complaint read.

The settlement is large, even by the FTC’s standards, but nothing close to the $5 billion fine that Meta, formerly known as Facebook, was ordered to pay in 2019.

 

“Of course, to enable parental controls, parents would first need to know they existed,” the FTC complaint noted. Only in 2019, “long after Epic obtained empirical evidence pointing to large numbers of Fortnite players” under the age of 13, did Epic introduce an age verification system.

“The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players,” Epic said in a statement.

 

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Rochdi Rais

Rochdi Rais is the Head of Growth and financial and legal writer at USA Herald. He has been writing and editing financial, legal and U.S. news for years with over +4000 articles published during his career.

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