It's time more parents started paying for children's apps

As the FTC sues Amazon for unauthorised in-app purchases, parents can support responsible developers of kids' apps


Amazon is in big trouble with the Federal Trade Commission. The US regulator has filed a lawsuit alleging that the company “has billed parents and other account holders for millions of dollars in unauthorized in-app charges incurred by children”.


The lawsuit makes for interesting reading, quoting an unnamed Amazon Appstore employee as saying complaints about children’s in-app spending were at “near house on fire” levels within weeks of Amazon launching in-app purchases within its store in 2011.


It cites specific games – Tap Zoo and Ice Age Village – and claims that Amazon has received “thousands of complaints” about the issue, while running an “unclear and confusing” process for parents to try to seek refunds.


Bad Amazon? Well, the company is not alone. Apple settled a similar FTC complaint this year, promising to refund at least $32.5m to affected parents. If a report earlier this week is to be believed, Apple has been egging the FTC on to take action against Google over similar issues.


These companies all made money – through the revenue share they take from in-app purchases made within apps distributed by their stores – from children spending money they shouldn’t have. Regulators like the FTC getting involved was inevitable.


It’s good that parents will be getting refunds, and also good that the crackdown has already forced changes in the way these stores operate. That includes Amazon, which started requiring people to enter passwords for in-app purchases of more than $20 in March 2012, and for all purchases in early 2013.


Responsibility doesn’t just lie with the app store owners though. We need to talk about parents.


Why are so many parents letting their children play mobile games that sell in-app purchases in quantities of up to $99.99 at a time? And, just as importantly, why are so many still unwilling to pay for the children’s apps that don’t do this?


I went to the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield earlier this month, and found a hugely-encouraging number of companies making creative, educational and innovative apps for children, selling them as paid apps with single, upfront payments, and working hard to win parents’ trust with their policies on data collection, in-app website links and ads for even their own apps.


I also found a hugely-discouraging number of them talking gloomily about the difficulties they have breaking even on the app stores, because so many parents prefer to let their children play freemium games like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga than pay for actual kids’ apps.


Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga are fine, but they’re not children’s apps. Nor are Hay Day, Plants vs. Zombies 2, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, The Sims FreePlay, Angry Birds Go, or anything with “Saga” on the end.


These aren’t children’s games, even if a lot of children are playing them. It’s good that Apple and Amazon are putting more measures in place to help parents guard against unauthorised spending – even if it was prompted by the threat of regulators getting involved – but there’s still a blunt question for parents:


Why not buy some actual children’s apps?


Developers and publishers like (deep breath) Toca Boca, Nosy Crow,StoryToys, Les Trois Elles, Disney, Duckie Deck, Tinybop, Sago Sago,Kidaptive, Night Zookeeper, Cowly Owl, Curious Hat, TribePlay, most of the big children’s book publishers and many, many more indie studios are making beautiful, creative and/or educational apps for children.


Most of these companies charge upfront for their apps, rather than use in-app purchases. But IAP isn’t by definition a ripoff either: from Hopster with its Netflix-style subscription for child-friendly cartoons and educational games to Me Books with its parent-controlled store of digital picture books, there are responsible examples too.


If more parents spend money on these companies’ apps, they’ll be able to sustain their businesses and make more, better apps for children. By getting our wallets out, parents can support a responsible industry of children’s app makers.


Parents actually have a lot of power in this area. The best way to get a short-term spike in sales of a children’s app is to get it featured by an app store owner. But the biggest factor in the longer-term, steadier sales that help these developers stay in business is word-of-mouth: parents telling other parents about the apps that they love.


Parents also have the power to put their wallets away and punish the makers of apps they feel are irresponsible. Playmobil hasn’t had a penny of my cash since releasing a game called Playmobil Pirates whose in-app purchases went up to £69.99, for example.


I’ll be happy to avoid the next Ice Age movie too – the FTC’s Amazon lawsuit notes that it sold virtual acorns to children for up to $99.99 at a time. Children’s brands rely on the trust of parents, and a grabby freemium app is a great way to erode that trust at a stroke.


It’s a strange time for some companies who we think of as children’s brands. British company Mind Candy, the creator of Moshi Monsters, is trying to appeal to an older audience with freemium games like Moshling Rescue, whose IAP also goes up to £69.99.


It’s a big risk: Mind Candy says it’s not promoting the game to children, but if some find it anyway, it’s a Daily Mail “Moshi Monsters rips off your kids” exposé waiting to be written. Angry Birds creator Rovio is coming the other way: it started as a regular mobile game with no particular age group in mind, but rapidly picked up a big audience of children.


Rovio has since made plenty of money out of parents through toys and merchandise, but is now walking the same delicate line as Mind Candy with fully-freemium games (theoretically) for adults like Angry Birds Go and Angry Birds Epic.


Those companies aren’t evil, but the jury is still out on whether they can balance large audiences of children on one side with whopping in-app purchases in games for adults on the other, without falling foul of parents. Even so, the main takeaway from the FTC’s Amazon lawsuit shouldn’t be that children’s apps are ripping children off. It’s that there are lots of actual children’s apps out there that deserve more support from parents.


Many parents think hard about what kind of books to buy for their children; mull over the suitability of various TV shows and films; and compare the educational and entertainment value of different toys. We can put similar thought into the apps that children are using, including paying for them.