How Facebook tricked kids, parents to spend money on games

Is your child addicted to playing free games on Facebook? Beware! The social media giant allegedly tricking children and parents into spending money in free-to-play games, according to media reports. According to a VentureBeat report, the social media platform did this to maximise its revenue. The decision has been internally dubbed as "friendly fraud". The reports that are part of a class-action lawsuit include internal Facebook memos, secret strategies and employee emails. The revelation was made on the basis of ecords that are part of a class-action lawsuit, and include internal Facebook memos, secret strategies and employee emails.

"And the company often denied attempts by parents to recover hundreds or even thousands of dollars until credit card companies 'clawed back' the money from Facebook," the VentureBeat reported late on Saturday.

The story detailed the case of one 12-year-old boy who had spent nearly $1,000 in the game Ninja Saga. That case led to a lawsuit in 2012, the report added. The time span for the abuses covered 2010 to 2014, but the documents related to these cases were not released until now.

An internal Facebook survey of users found that many parents did not even realise that the social networking giant was storing their credit card information which was later being used by children without re-entering a password or some other form of verification.