Critics To FTC: Why Do You Hate In-App Purchasing Freedom?

jfruh writes The FTC has moved aggressively recently against companies that make it too easy for people — especially kids — to rack up huge charges on purchases within apps. But at a dicussion panel sponsored by free-market think tank TechFreedom, critics pushed back. Joshua Wright, an FTC commissioner who dissented in a recent settlement with Apple, says a 15-minute open purchase window produced "obvious and intuitive consumer benefits" and that the FTC "simply substituted its own judgment for a private firm's decision as to how to design a product to satisfy as many users as possible."

Comments

Their Job

[BitZtream]

Because its their job to hate people who take advantage of others in matters of trade?

Re:Their Job

[jd]

Very true. A wholly free market is actually quite toxic, as a certain Adam Smith noted. Especially when it's dishonest.

In-app purchases are the return of micropayments, but for virtual goods less valuable than Second Life real estate. It is, of course, entirely fair for companies to sell such products and for customers to buy them, but the control system is poor, virtual goods have an amazingly high failure rate for delivery, and prices are often in the small print.