A federal judge has ruled that Amazon must reimburse parents of children who made in-app purchases without permission.

Children are estimated to have generated $86 million in unauthorised charges due to the ease of buying IAPs.

As a result, Amazon has been told to begin a year-long process to provide refunds to affected parents. It will have to set up a claims service in early 2017, and reimburse eligible users by the end of the year.

Child's play

The suggestion that these refunds could be in the form of gift cards was denied. The judge said that the company would "undoubtedly recapture some of the profits that are at issue".

The ruling comes over two years after Amazon had been accused by the Federal Trade Commission of making it too easy for children to buy IAPs in their games.

[Source: Reuters]