By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazon.com was sued on Thursday by the U.S. government for allowing children to use mobile apps to rack up millions of dollars in charges without getting permission from parents, who were stuck with the bills. The lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission, seeks to make the online retailer refund money spent without parental authorization and to end Amazon's practice of allowing unlimited purchases without requiring a password or other mechanism to give parents control over their accounts. The unauthorized charges are often associated with children's apps, such as games, that can be free to download but allow players to make in-app purchases by buying "coins" or other digital products with the credit card associated with the device, the FTC said in its complaint. The apps run on Amazon's Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD and mobile devices that use Google's Android operating system.



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