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March 11, 2006
FTC Extends COPPA Without Changes...and New FTC RSS Feeds
By Eric Goldman
The FTC has extended the COPPA rule unchanged. Most significantly, the rule continues to preclude non-authenticated email as a way of obtaining parental consent.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about COPPA much any more. I teach my Cyberlaw class that they should advise clients to avoid being governed by COPPA at all costs. COPPA makes it expensive to provide online interactivity tools to kids; but by definition, kids don't have any online purchasing power. So it's hard to profit from providing robust online tools to kids.
Having said that, I am constantly surprised by the number of websites I see that should be COPPA-compliant but don't appear to make any effort to comply with it. I think the FTC could find plenty of targets if it decided to sweep for COPPA violations.
On a separate note: While checking out the FTC's website, I discovered that the FTC quietly has launched RSS feeds. Terrific news!
Posted by Eric at March 11, 2006 02:29 PM | Privacy/Security
Comments
What about Blogs v. websites? Blog operators really loathe putting terms and conditions on their blogs - they think it's uncool. If there is a blog moderator, or the blog is social network site but not catering to kids, is there a problem with not having a COPPA notice - or any terms/conditions on the Blog.
Posted by: Ellen at November 18, 2006 07:53 PM