Half a billion dollars in fines because of Fortnite! Epic Games is accused of violating two important U.S. child protection laws

According to major U.S. publication The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused Epic Games in violation of several major laws, which led to a total fine of 520 million dollars game publisher.

Here's What We Know

Two civil lawsuits resulted in such a substantial fine: violations of children's privacy ($275 million) and inducements to make unintentional purchases ($245 million). The online game Fortnite is to blame.

It became known that Epic Games illegally collected personal information from players under 13 years old without the knowledge and consent of their parents.

Also the company manipulated the interest of children and provoked them to unintentional in-game purchases, which brought Epic Games hundreds of millions of dollars.

Another unfortunate factor for the gaming corporation was the fact that Fortnite has text and voice chats by default. There is active bullying of children, up to and including calls for suicide, profanity and other equally negative phenomena.

In general, the fine of half a billion dollars should prompt Epic Games to take emergency measures to fix the above problems, and other developers will be a warning against such actions.