Apple, Amazon and Google have reached an agreement with Italy’s anti-trust and competition regulator AGCM over the “freemium” apps model. The Italian agency launched a wide-ranging investigation in coordination with the European Commission over what it described as the “unfair commercial practices” of the US tech multinationals, which run app stores that it said misled customers by advertising mobile game apps as “free” although “subsequent purchases are required to continue playing.” The three companies, along with French game developer Gameloft, have now committed to removing the word “free” from apps that may require subsequent in-app purchases for extra lives or extra powers or features. The companies also agreed to give users a warning when an in-app purchase is being made, said the Italian regulator, which had threatened to apply a maximum fine of EUR 5 million if the changes weren’t applied. They now have 60 days to make the changes.
In a statement announcing the agreement, the AGCM said it welcomed the companies’ commitment to making proposals that extended to the European Union as a whole. “Consumers can now count on greater guarantees than would have been achieved by imposing fines on the companies involved in this business practice,” it said.
So-called “free-to-play” or “freemium” apps were the subject of an investigation conducted by the European Commission at the start of 2014 which concluded that companies should revise their rules on apps that are advertised as free but which later require purchases that are charged to consumers' credit cards by default. In January last year Apple came to a settlement with the FTC which saw the company provide USD 32 million in refunds to parents whose children purchased unauthorised in-app items on the App Store.
