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https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/ftc-pledges-to-investigate-video-game-loot-boxes
https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/ftc-pledges-to-investigate-video-game-loot-boxes
Joseph Simons, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, pledged to Congress Tuesday (Nov. 27) that his agency would look into in-video game "loot boxes," which generate ongoing revenue from online games via virtual items that can be bought—say, new or more powerful weapons.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) said that such revenue generators were predicted to be a $50 billion business by 2020.
She said that "loot boxes" are now "endemic" to the video game industry from smart phone apps to high-budget releases. She said children may be "particularly susceptible" to such purchases.
Simons assured [Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)] that he and the agency were concerned about manipulative in-app marketing, and that it was looking into, or likely would look into, various allegations against Google and others related to kids content, including that Google's YouTube, asserted that its toy review for the kids channel was not targeted to kids and thus not subject to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which Markey authored two decades ago.
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