• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, April 5, 2017

What does a company worth around $430 billion care about $70 million or so?

Likely asking itself that exact question, Amazon just dropped an appeal against last year’s count ruling, which found the tech giant guilty of illegally billing users for their kids’ in-app purchases.

To the tune of roughly $70 million, “Consumers affected by Amazon’s practices can now be compensated for charges they didn’t expect or authorize,” Thomas B. Pahl, acting director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, stated on Wednesday.

Last April, a federal district court found that Amazon billed consumers for unauthorized in-app charges incurred by children using mobile apps such as online games downloaded through the company’s app store.

The court found that Amazon failed to get parents’ consent for in-app charges made by their children.

In that same ruling, the court also denied the FTC’s request for an injunction that would have forbidden Amazon from similar conduct in the future.

The FTC appealed the denial of the injunction, and Amazon then cross-appealed the court’s ruling that the company had violated the law. The district court stayed its order requiring Amazon to begin offering refunds to injured consumers while the appeals were pending.

The FTC’s action against Amazon followed similar cases filed against Apple and Google related to unauthorized in-app charges incurred by children requiring the companies to fully refund consumers for such charges.