9to5Mac reports that, after what Apple CEO Tim Cook calls "several months" of negotiations, Apple has decided to settle with the Federal Trade Commission over the matter of the App Store's in-app purchases. Specifically it was the FTC's concerns over how easy it might be for young children to make purchases on iOS devices without their parents' consent.
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CNNIt's a bit of an odd situation to have to settle with the FTC when Apple has already spent a good chunk of 2013 trying to contact parents that may have had issues with such purchases and offering refunds; a sentiment that Cook echoes in an email he sent out to Apple employees earlier today. Although, as Cook also mentions, Apple's plans for continuing to deal with this potential problem are in-line with what the FTC wants anyway.
"It doesn’t feel right for the FTC to sue over a case that had already been settled. To us, it smacked of double jeopardy. However, the consent decree the FTC proposed does not require us to do anything we weren’t already going to do, so we decided to accept it rather than take on a long and distracting legal fight."
You can read the full email over at 9to5Mac, and feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the App Store's in-app purchase system in the comments below.
