EU presents rules for in-app purchases

As you may know, the European Commission launched an investigation in to in-app purchases and misleading free-to-play claims earlier this year, and have now presented their findings.

According to the press release, the commission set down these four rules in cooperation with national authorities about in-app purchases:

- Games advertised as "free" should not mislead consumers about the true costs involved

- Games should not contain direct exhortation to children to buy items in a game or to persuade an adult to buy items for them

- Consumers should be adequately informed about the payment arrangements for purchases and should not be debited through default settings without consumers' explicit consent

- Traders should provide an email address so that consumers can contact them in case of queries or complaints

The commission has communicated these rules to Apple, Google and other app store owners, and says that Google has already taken steps to comply with them, and will be in full compliance by september. This includes not using the word "free" in connection with any app that features IAP.

On the other hand, the commission is calling out Apple for not taking steps to comply with the new rules, or even providing a timeline for doing so.

In any case, the new rules will hopefully lead to less IAP-hounding free-to-play games.