COPPA one year later

With the first anniversary of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) approaching, many are debating the effects of the new legislation.
COPPA, which went into effect on April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13 years of age.
The new rules outline what a Web site operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children’s privacy and safety online.
Local online children’s entertainment companies such as Circle 1 Network, Milwaukee, which hosts the site Kidscom.com, admits it has had to make some adjustments since the law was passed the past year. “We definitely had to be more cautious,” says Leigh Lucarelli, executive producer, who says the verification process for gaining parental consent to use certain aspects of the site is costly, and is what has caused many companies to fail.
However, Toby Levin, senior attorney for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington, D.C. disagrees with that perspective. “I do recognize that there are costs involved in having employees review permission forms,” she says. “But many sites are figuring out creative ways to involve children at the sites without collecting information. I think the number of sites that are providing for rich content without collection of information have increased.”
Part of the costly implementation argument, she says, also revolves around such things as the belief that companies must hire monitors for their chat rooms. “COPPA does not require that you monitor your chat,” Levin notes. “COPPA requires that you get parental consent if you’re going to enable children to participate in chat that’s not pre-screened. So I think there’s been some misrepresentation about what COPPA actually requires.”
The University of Pennsylvania recently conducted an extensive study of the 162 sites with the highest percentage of child visitors under age 13. Mixed results were produced on the effectiveness of the new law. For example, the study revealed that one in 10 of the children’s sites collected personal information from visitors but did not have a privacy policy link on their home pages, and 14 of those sites had no privacy policies at all.
Although Levin says that 91% of sites have implemented a privacy policy on their sites since last April, many of those policies are admittedly confusing and difficult to understand. According to the Penn study, half of the 90 privacy policies were so complex that it took college students experienced with privacy issues about 9-1/2 minutes per policy in search of its COPPA statements.
Levin says that a lot of the blame lies in a large learning curve regarding the COPPA compliancy process. “We are working both to educate the sites about what their legal obligations are, and have a lot of materials on our Web site to help businesses comply,” she says. “And additionally, we are bringing law enforcement action, and we hope to have some to announce later this month to just drive home the fact that there are penalties for violating the law.”
Although she would not elaborate on those specific cases, they would be the first such cases that have arisen since the implementation of the law.
Those sites were alleged to be in egregious violation of COPPA and were discovered during FTC monitoring, which is conducted by staff attorneys and paralegals. The monitoring process can simply involve random site checks or and individual assuming the identity of a child.
But not all of those in violation of COPPA will be brought up on charges, says Levin. “If they’re egregious practices, we may want to seek an order and penalties. If it’s less egregious we may want to just bring it to their attention.”
Martha Datema-Lipscomb, former special projects producer and international producer for many “Barney and Friends,” productions says, “One of the things about public policy and technology is that you don’t always know how these things are going to shake out.”
She adds that at least at this point, in her opinion it’s hard to tell if the COPPA law will help or hurt the industry or society as a whole. “I think that anything that expresses a common interest in protecting children is a good idea,” says Datema-Lipscomb, “because I think it shows that we share a common purpose.”
According to Levin there are no plans at this time to amend the law. Focus now is education and enforcement. For more information on COPPA compliance, visit: www.ftc.gov/kidzprivacy
— Susan Paprcka

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