Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

No age requirement at wordpress.com – There is no age requirement in effect for becoming a blogger at wordpress.com and we do have children under the age of 13 years blogging here. What follows is an example. I hasten to add, it’s not isolated to a single child, as Google searches reveal that other children blogging at wordpress.com have published their ages online.

WordPress.com Support Forum Example

Aussielover, Member: “I’ve invited several friends,and they all say they can’t view it because it says it’s private. Anyone know why?”
Timethief, Member: “Yes! You have set up your blog to be private and “protected”. Exactly what were you aiming for please? We can’t help unless you give more information. “
Aussielover, Member: “I’m [age deleted - drmike] so i wanted it to be private,not public,and i invited family and friends to view it.but they can’t.i mean me and my mom used the thing you can fill out to invite them…….”
Timethief, Member: “I could be wrong but I believe the law requires that you have to be 13 years of age or older to have your own blog here.”
Mark, Key Master: “We have no such requirement.”

Age Requirements in Cyberspace: What the Law Mandates – The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) regulates the use of websites by minors. Websites targeted primarily at children have a duty to obtain “verifiable” parental consent before allowing children thirteen years and under to become users. The Federal Trade (FTC) commission is the agency that enforces COPPA.

The FTC, after noting that “children under thirteen have often been the standard for distinguishing adolescents from young children who may need special protections,” adds that “As a general matter, however, the FTC encourages operators to afford teens privacy protections, given the risks inherent in the disclosure of personal information for all ages.”

History – Congress passed the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (“COPPA”). COPPA is aimed at websites that offer services directly to children under age 13, but it is also aimed at websites making their services available to children under age 13, despite not being the primary users. COPPA requires such websites to:
* Post a privacy policy with links to the notice provided on the home page and at each area where the site or online service collects personal information from children;
* Detail how the operator of the website uses the personal information and whether it is disclosed to third parties;
* Describe every kind of information collected from children, such as, name, address, e-mail address, hobbies, and age;
* Institute procedures that “protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of personal information collected from children.”
* Provide parents with contact information for all operators collecting or maintaining children’s personal information;
* Allow parents to review, correct, and delete information about their children collected by such services; and
* Obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information about a child under the age of 13. For full text see this link.

Court Actions – Recently, the FTC commenced an enforcement action against Xanga.com, another popular social networking site, alleging that the site had failed to implement proper age controls. Xanga.com agreed to pay $1 million — the largest penalty ever assessed for violations of COPPA.

According to the FTC’s complaint, Xanga permitted approximately 1.7 million accounts to be opened by individuals who listed birth dates indicating that they were under age thirteen, without getting parental consent. Collecting personal information from anyone under thirteen without parental consent is a violation of COPPA.

In addition four other have families filed suit against the social-networking site MySpace and its owner, News Corporation. Each family alleges that its teenage daughter was sexually abused by an adult she met on MySpace. This was not the first such suit for MySpace. In June 2006, MySpace was sued by a Texas family who alleges that its fourteen-year-old daughter was assaulted by a nineteen-year-old she met on MySpace – who lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust. These cases have yet to be decided by the courts.

The AG’s Proposals – A group of thirty-three states’ Attorneys General, led by Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, has threatened possible legal action if MySpace does not raise the minimum age of its members from its current fourteen, to sixteen, and also confirm the ages of all of its users.

First, there’s the proposed age limit: The Attorneys General have focused on the age of sixteen and there are arguments both in favour and opposed to setting that limit. Second, there’s verification of member’s ages against public databases. There are arguments both in favour and opposed to this proposal as well, although it seems to be the more promising one of the two.

Wrap-up – It seems the underlying reasons these issues have arisen are four-fold:
(1) The freewheeling uncensored and accessible nature of internet technology.
(2) The fact that many parents are exercising no supervision over their children’s use of the internet.
(3) The fact that both children and adults impersonating children, including sexual predators, are not using the internet responsibly.
(4) The fact that despite COPPA’s protections, there is a thriving list brokerage industry that targets children.

At this link you can see an image is of a pre-school list advertisement, where marketers can purchase one million names for only $5. For more information on list brokerage and profiling, see the EPIC Profiling Page and the EPIC Student Privacy Page.