Senators ask Facebook why it tricked kids into spending parents’ money

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Two Democratic senators have asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain why the social network apparently "manipulated children into spending their parents' money without permission" while playing games on Facebook.

"A new report from the Center for Investigative Reporting shows that your company had a policy of willful blindness toward credit card charges by children-internally referred to as 'friendly fraud'-in order to boost revenue at the expense of parents," US Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Zuckerberg today. "Notably, Facebook appears to have rejected a plan that would have effectively mitigated this risk and instead doubled down on maximizing revenue."

Because parents didn't know that children would be able to make purchases without additional verification, "many young users incurred several thousands of dollars in charges while playing games like Angry Birds, Petville, Wild Ones, and Barn Buddy," the senators' letter said.

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