Italy’s anti-trust and competition regulator AGCM has announced a wide-ranging investigation into what it claims are the “unfair commercial practices” of US tech multinationals Apple, Google and Amazon and French game developer Gameloft in relation to mobile game apps. AGCM will be looking into whether the four companies are misleading customers by advertising mobile game apps as “free”, when the fact is that “subsequent purchases are required to continue playing”, said the anti-trust watchdog in a statement. The regulator believes that the practice could be considered misleading because “consumers could wrongly believe that the game is entirely free and… insufficient information seems to be provided on how to amend the settings to stop or limit the purchases within the app." The investigation is likely to be concluded before the end of the year and each of the companies could receive a maximum fine of EUR 5 million.
So-called “free-to-play” or “freemium” apps were the subject of an investigation by the European Commission earlier this year, 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 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.
