US Federal Trade Commission fines Fortnite creator Epic Games $520 million

(Image Courtesy: Epic Games)

Epic Games, creators of Fortnite and owners of the Epic Games Store, have been fined a combined $520 million by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), according to a report by Reuters.

A record fine of $275 million was imposed on the company for violating child privacy laws and failure to adapt stronger default settings for children. Another $245 million were based on allegations that Epic manipulated users into buying content they did not want.

“Epic used privacy-invasive default settings and deceptive interfaces that tricked Fortnite users, including teenagers and children,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a statement.

Epic Games said in a statement that they had eliminated random loot boxes in 2019, and pay-to-win or pay-to-progress items had also been removed. It said that it displays a prominent yes or no option for saving card information.

It also said that it had created strong features that protect children online like parental controls and authorization for payments.

The voice of dissent against the company's practices, curiously seems to have come from the developers, working at Epic Games.

The FTC said that a lot of the company's employees were concerned about the default settings for children on Epic Store, pointing to things such as voice chat enabled by default.

The commission made it clear that voice chat should be turned off for children by default, and not doing so is a violation of privacy.