Leaving children to have complete reign over the things they do without some restrictions is always a recipe for disaster, and that extends to the digital world where paid apps, in-app purchases and loot boxes are the order of the day. Without some oversight here, parents might find their accounts drained since their children decided to go big on buying the latest costumes for their characters in their favourite games or something similar.
To counter this, Google has a mechanism to let guardians restrict the kind of purchases their children can make using the family payment method. Basically, the guardian gets to choose whether the purchase goes through by inputting a password. For non-paid content, the guardian will still get a notification and has the option to deny or approve his children accessing the content.
In a new addition, Google is introducing a new method that goes around this, especially in situations where the guardian has not set up a family payment method. The new addition is called Purchase Requests, and as the name suggests, the feature lets children send a purchase request directly to the family manager. The family manager will in turn get the purchase request in real time and can then approve or deny the purchases on their devices.
The family manager can use their own payment method, including Google Gift Cards, to approve the request and make the purchase. These purchase requests can also be found by the family manager under the pending and history tabs.
This addition guarantees a guardian has full control over their children’s purchases and family spending since there is no default payment method set up. Every purchase by the children has to be approved by the family manager, meaning you have control of even what kind of content your child interacts with, and can deny him/her access to harmful products that can encourage vices such as gambling.
Google notes that Purchase Requests are not available to family groups that already have a family payment method set up. Furthermore, Purchase Requests are only available for paid apps and in-app purchases, the feature does not work with Play Books, Google TV, or subscription purchases. Finally, the family manager must have an Android smartphone to use the feature.
