You are arguing about accounting jargon. The card has to be tracked, the entries that track it fall under the label "liability".
There’s our common ground! The common sense question: why is 1 year legal when there is a federal law saying it’s must be 5 years?
Amazon is another prominent example. It gift card in the US never expires and has no fee. It's a good place for stashing funds. Do you think Amazon doesn't have accountants?
For logical reasons I have noted before, there is no unmanageable risk to any sizable firm with it.