AMLK: Do not provide your account details or personal details and block the credit card from reuse on the site/game
By: Alik Katsav, Director of Research, National Headquarters for the Protection of Children Online - 105
Video games are tools that give a lot! Action and adventure games encourage children to perform many tasks at the same time and be focused like they would never be outside of the game.
Researches show that players at the competitive levels are as quick-thinking as (and maybe more) than fighter pilots. Even games like Fortnite and other shooting games Develop visual perception and attention at high levels And along the way, we also enjoy them.
"Mom/Dad, they hacked my game, took my gold/diamonds/weapons/skins (character clothing suits)"
I would like to start this article by refuting the above mentioned sentence. No one takes the time to hack your computer (without hurting your and the children's feelings). You're just not important enough for a hacker to take the time to break into your system to take skins from the kid.
In 99.9% of the cases where the children complain about account theft, this is caused either if the child gave his account to someone because they promised him "gold/diamonds/weapons/skins" if he gave them access to his account, or if they promised him replacements of equipment and he gave them equipment and did not receive what was promised to him, or he simply left his account open with friends (based on a real case) who entered his account when he was not paying attention, and transferred his equipment to them.
So, the first law in network games - Do not be tempted to share your personal account information For every person who offers you free gifts! Because in life, nothing is actually free.
The problem of privacy is one of the main problems on the Internet, young people, and especially children, do not see the distribution of their personal information as problematic, and even if it is, sometimes they fall into the small details. For example - choosing a username. When I talk to a player called Amit2008 I know (with a margin of error of course) that the boy's name is Amit and he was born in 2008 because that is how it is convenient for children to introduce themselves. The problem begins when there are adults who want to be thought they are children and they use this method for this purpose and can make the children mistaken and think they are having a conversation with another child when in fact they are conversing with an adult (and most of these pretenders do not have any positive intentions, from experience). Therefore, even For our username we will use a name that will protect our privacy and certainly a password.
"This game company stole from me, how did 3000 NIS come off my credit card for this game?"
This is a sentence you will not hear from the children, but probably more from the parents, and a spoiler for the rest...
No, the gaming company didn't steal the money from you, you gave it to them. Just like you wouldn't give a child a credit card in a toy store and then get to the cash register and look at the bill in astonishment, the same is true here. Did you buy the child a game/diamonds/gold? Great, now delete your credit card information from the system after buying (or make sure that every purchase requires entering a secret code that only you know - via Google Play or Apple Pay). This will avoid a situation where the child will continue to make uncontrolled purchases in the store and will even avoid the situation where if he gave his account details to someone else (as in the first example) he will not be able to make purchases on your credit card.
So whether you are a gamer who sits on leather, fabric or porcelain (the three types of gamers...) as long as the rules are followed, inside and outside the game, it is possible to have fun without exposing ourselves to unnecessary injuries.
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One response
A super important topic with a superficial reference here in the article