The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns of the mobile advertising platform Tapjoy.
The FTC recently released a statement to address the existing problems in the mobile gaming industry. While the statements made by the two members of the commission were about misleading advertisements and the sanctions of mobile app stores, it was stated that these problems will be examined in more detail.
They will examine the mobile game platform Tapjoy
The Federal Trade Commission had ordered Tapjoy to improve how it polices the advertisers who use its tech.
Sometimes, we need to take actions like purchasing or signing up to a subscription, to be eligible for a power-up or reward for mobile games. Tapjoy’s platform allows developers to integrate this system into their games.
However, the FTC found that the firm had failed to prevent advertisers from getting players to engage with ads — even spending money or giving up sensitive data — without delivering the promised rewards or sharing the required revenue with developers.
“Many players jumped through hoops — and even spent money and turned over sensitive data — to complete Tapjoy’s offers, only to receive nothing in return,” said the commissioner Rohit Chopra. “It appears that Tapjoy amplified false offers by its business partners, who baited gamers with big rewards only to cheat them when it was time to pay up.”
It is also claimed that the company continued to push those deceptive advertisements despite being inundated with player complaints, resulting in developers being cheated out of their share of revenue for successful ad engagements.
FTC has proposed that screening and testing procedures be integrated into the Tapjoy platform to weed out malicious advertisers. In addition, the FTC, which wants Tapjoy to better control its platform, insists that Tapjoy should “take more responsibility for fraud, rather than facilitating it.”
