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!