Stricter COPPA Laws Coming In July 134
Velcroman1 writes "The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was enacted in 1998. In 2011, the FTC beefed up the measure, preventing sites from collecting personal information from kids such as name, location and date of birth without a parent's consent. This July, new amendments for kids under 13 will go into effect, approved by the FTC in December. The rules are targeted at sites that market specifically to kids. However, even a site like Facebook could be fined for allowing minors to post self-portraits, audio recordings of their voice, and images with geo-location data. There are also new restrictions on tracking data, with cookies or a unique identifier that follow registrants from one site to another."
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, how hard is it to tell your kid don't tell someone where you are and don't meet them?
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Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks that parenting is easy and kids will just do what they are told are either A. not a parent, or B. a deadbeat parent.
I agree with you though, when the state gets involved with parenting it causes a whole new level of problems
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No, it's not easy. But it's your job, and it's self-selected (in general).
Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
I may get modded into oblivion for this, but... society-wise, maybe it's better for the occasional Darwin moment to happen, even if it involves a kid.
Seriously - when you have government becoming more and more imposing on societal rights and freedoms "for the children", maybe it's time to stop and let parents find out (even if, sadly, it's the hard way) that maybe they should stop treating the Internet like a toy. Long ago, I was asked to teach my local church group about the Internet. The analogy I drew worked pretty well in my own estimation:
The Internet is like New York City. It's fun, exciting, you can buy stuff there, and it can educate as well as entertain. However! Just like the Big Apple, you do not let your kid wander around the place alone.
Thing is, no parent would be stupid enough to let their under-aged kid wander around Times Square at night. So why do they let their kids play unfettered on the Internet? Maybe it's because the dangers of the big city are obvious and apparent, whereas they aren't online? Well, if enough news stories come out about kids harmed by doing something dumb online, and happens often enough, maybe the parents will get the hint? As shitty as it is to say this, maybe we need enough of this to happen before the clue sinks in?
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It'll never happen. Much like firearm legislation, the ultimate goal isn't the laws that they're showing you... today. They'll chisel away until what is absurd today looks like the logical conclusion tomorrow.
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Apparently it isn't harder than telling your congressmen that there is a think of the children problem to be solved. It is an easy target with which they can act like they are doing something while not actually doing anything productive.
If we took just a portion of the money spent on feel good, do nothing "think of the children" initiatives, we could probably have a nationwide roll out of gigabit fibre. Will my proposal do anything for the children? Quite possibly since there is that digital divide where so
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There is no way for a site to know person X is a child or not... any way you did that would constitute tracking. So... the ONLY way to do it is to stop companies from tracking without your explicit consent.
Then parent your child all you want. Until then though, it is mostly pointless to worry about whether they are posting pictures of themselves on Facebook. I mean
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-shrug- if you don't lik
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Why Facebook was thrown into the mix I really have no idea because it is against their registration policy for anyone under 13 to have an account on there. Not that that stops those kids but it does give Facebook a bit of protection.
Look, you have these laws because in their absence businesses go hog wild and target them extremely hard. Ever watch children's TV advertising? So in a sense they are selling it to "Rapists-R-Us" when they sell the kids data to marketers.
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"Why Facebook was thrown into the mix I really have no idea because it is against their registration policy for anyone under 13 to have an account on there. Not that that stops those kids but it does give Facebook a bit of protection."
Nothing personal, but this illustrates the lack of knowledge that many people have about how this all works.
Facebook tracks the IPs of every visitor to every site that has a Facebook "like" button on it. You don't have to be using Facebook, or even have a Facebook account.
Then, they link up that IP, and information about the site, to whatever other data they have on that IP. And you'd be surprised what you can tell using that information: your name, who your friends are, what you like, your political
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"Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less."
even though this is way off topic, i must wonder...how would you run a government without taxation?
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I think that's the point.
andy
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Usage fees, maybe. But GP isn't necessarily saying you should run a government without taxation. Just be cognizant that taxation takes money directly from the people whenever you consider where you spend and raise your revenue or vote for your representatives. I think it would be pretty good if congress really internalized the fact that the money they're collecting and spending belongs to the people - assuming they care, of course.
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Usage fees would be a horrible system, creating a more feudalism society then anything else. Congress (or in general, are whole system) doesn't care because they don't answer to the people, they answer to donors, bankers, large corporations and record industry's. Its plutocracy that causes them not care. If they answered to the people, the rich would be paying a whole shit load more, our military would be alot smaller, the iraq war would have accountability, and bankers would of gone to jail.
Saying taxation
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"The spectrum of theft-taxation:"
You missed GP's point.
The difference is that government (for the most part, anyway) isn't "sneaking". They're looking you right in the eye and taking your money. That's a particular kind of theft, called "robbery".
This is not to say that government isn't sneaking. They have done plenty of that. But they're taking your money pretty openly.
Re: Usage Fees (Score:2)
Usage fees can work in certain areas, but not others. For example, military situations. Yes, I know, war is bad and all that...but if you find yourself stuck in one, does one pay a "usage fee" to the military? Does one only continue to fight as long as enough people agree to "use" it? Do soldiers only protect citizens who have paid the usage fee?
Do police require payment for each time they arrest someone for a crime? Can someone opt to not "use" the services of the officer and avoid a ticket?
Do firemen only
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Do firemen only fight fires of people who have paid usage fees? If someone doesn't pay the fee beforehand, how can they after their house has burned down?
There was a case of that in the news not that long ago. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39516346/ns/us_news-life/ [nbcnews.com]
Someone who hadn't paid the fire services levy had their house catch fire.
Firemen turned up and made sure that the house next door (who had paid) didn't catch, while they watched it burn to the ground.
There were plenty of officials defending it, so I guess it is still official policy
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One way is to have the town pay for it, with money collected through taxes.
Another is to have the fire district (a taxing organization independent of town govt) collect their own taxes.
However, if there is not enough tax revenue to support a fire dept, then some small towns simply don't. What usually happens then, is that the fire dept f
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In those situations, if you aren't a member of the coop or a customer of the company, they will often gladly watch your house burn down. It's good advertising.
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This is a self-regulating problem. Localities that do this burn up and go away, serving as an object lesson to their neighbors. These tools have merely forgotten history. That's how it used to work in many places, and we don't do it that way any more because of the secondary effects.
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Why would I care if Facebook is tracking on every internet page? ... What a terrible tragedy it is that people want to sell me things that I think I'd like!
That's not all they use the information for. Several companies have been caught altering prices based on tracking information.
For example, web flight booking sites will raise their prices automatically if you return to the site later.
Many websites automatically jack up prices if they detect that you're from Australia.
Amazon was caught adding small offsets to the prices of items for different customers, and then analysing behaviour to set prices. I can imagine a Facebook-tracking integrated system that detec
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Adults mostly understand that marketing is bullshit and the value of money, but kids don't. That is why we regulate advertising to children more heavily than for adults.
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"Why would I care if Facebook is tracking on every internet page?"
You don't care that companies can track everything your child does on the internet?
That's your choice, but I'm glad I don't live near you.
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"-shrug- if you don't like tracking, block the cookies. If you don't like Facebook don't have a Facebook account. If you don't like ads use adblock."
Shows what you know about it. Most tracking doesn't involve cookies. Do you really understand how this stuff works? I think probably not.
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You sound young.
You sound young.
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These same folks who are up in arms about the Nanny State when it comes to large drinks and smoking have no concept of individual liberty, because they're perfectly at home banning a Constitutionally enumerated right 'for the children'. That includes speech and the right to bear arms. The irony is lost on them...
We live in a world where the people in power have two opposing ideas in their heads that they can magically agree are not at odds with each other.... (Witness cunt Feinstein's argument that the Assa
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Plenty of the same folks up in arms about drink and smoking are also up in arms about other rights. Unfortunately too few. People have a real problem separating "I don't think you should do that." from "I'm going to force you not to do that." I don't smoke, and I don't have any interest is using marijuana. And, frankly, I think you're better off not participating in either of those vices either*. But if you want to do that or allow people to do that at your restaurant, that is none of my business. I'll save my parenting for my actual kids. In Washington sometimes I win (legalized marijuana), but more often I lose (no smoking in publicly accessible private places).
* I'm speaking to the majority case here. I know perfectly well that for some people doing either can be a rational choice. The point is that it's your choice, good or bad, and not mine.
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The large drink ban should be okay then. You can still buy two regular size drinks, no freedom lost. You probably won't because it makes you look like a glutton and doesn't seem like good value. The psychology is well understood.
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That's not the point. The Big Gulp was exempted from the ban, btw. I don't need the state telling me how much I can drink. I don't need the state telling me that a gun with a collapsible stock is somehow more 'evil' than one without. The government needs its nose out of my bedroom and my house. That's what the Bill of Rights was supposed to enumerate. They were not for us, because we already have those rights... they are for the government to know where not to tread. They're not rights up for "negotiation",
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In defense of the "no smoking in public" bans, the point of that wasn't stopping people from smoking, but stopping people's smoking from affecting others. Before the ban, my wife (who has asthma) and I would go to a restaurant, be seated in a non-smoking section, and have smoke waft over from the smoking section 2 tables over. It wasn't even a matter of stopping going to those locations either because this was a problem in virtually EVERY restaurant. (A few might have been big enough to have completely s
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In defense of the "no smoking in public" bans, the point of that wasn't stopping people from smoking, but stopping people's smoking from affecting others
That's not a defense, it's an excuse. If there are as many people who don't want to eat in a cloud of smoke as trot out their support of the government-imposed ban, then clearly, a restaurant that chose to not allow smoking could do rather well for itself.
The same goes for the opposite.
And if there aren't enough of either group to make their choice viable for the restaurant owners, well, that's what the range in the kitchen is for.
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I don't like dealing with the smoke either. I prefer non-smoking restaurants. But I can take my business to places that support my preferences without demanding that everyone conform to them. By all means ban smoking in your store, your office building, or your home. Ban it in places that are actually public, like a school, library, or court. But it's wrong to command people to ban it in their own privately owned and operated businesses just because they are open to the public.
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Parents shouldn't have to constantly spy on their kids to make sure they aren't giving out information online that online advertisers (DoubleClick) and services (Facebook) are preying upon. Also, even if they did or sat down and had that talk with them every week so they were reminded not to do this the moment it happens anyways it's already too late and the information is out there. The internet never forgets. I'm totally in favor of these trifling bastards being regulated about our damn privacy for once.
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Impossible. That would require a level of personal responsibility that the government has long denied the people have. Though it is funny that the government is so vocal about democratic elections, as if the people who are so stupid in every day lives, that they can't choose what size soda to drink and how to save for retirement on their own can responsibly elect their own government in a democratic manner. How are people managing this level of dichotomy is beyond me, but I guess it's the age old adage abou
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Hmmm, interesting. I guess we're morons for electing people for treating us like morons.
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'We' generally vote for people who will treat 'those other people' like morons, not ourselves.
You must be clueless (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, how about the parent watches the child nearly all the time:
Corporations can still track and profile the kid from birth. The child can be targeted in ways the parent is unaware of, since they lack expertise in child psychology, marketing, peer pressure, and whatever new technology only the kids are using. Don't forget about abusive ex-spouses and kidnappers. Excluding pedos, because they are likely friends or family.
The child's future employment (just for starters) could be influenced by data gathered on
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Seriously?
Any citations?
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Are you serious? What HR professional is going to openly say that is their policy? After all that HR experience they'd have to be extremely foolish!
I PERSONALLY KNEW AN HR PERSON WHO SAID THIS, OFF THE RECORD. I won't say which major retail chain box store or for what positions (corporate office positions) this was done but it did happen and yes, anything they didn't like on your public facebook profile would get you rejected. While some people who looked fun at a party would get picked. It was never ag
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How about we stop it with the nanny-state crap and FUD about online and have parents -gasp- parent?
Because the times have changed. In the "roaring 50s" you could be a single-earner household and support the spouse and two kids, and live in a nice house and drive a nice car. These days, however, dual-income families are the norm, and you don't usually get the nice house and nice car either. Parents cannot be full-time in this economy. As a result, the government is stepping in with greater regulation. Ideally, yes, "parents should parent". Ideally, all children and their families should be shipped to a sp
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Because the times have changed. In the "roaring 50s" you could be a single-earner household and support the spouse and two kids, and live in a nice house and drive a nice car.
That was never true for everyone just like
Parents cannot be full-time in this economy.
is not true for everyone now. And how much of this has to do with wanting to work outside the house or your perceptions or what really qualifies as "nice?"
Let's discuss those problems rather than having a knee-jerk "regulation is bad! It'll cause the end of the world as we know it!" reaction.
Would you accept an argument that regulation is bad because even though it won't end the world as we know it, it's just one more small step the wrong way that we don't need to take?
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That was never true for everyone just like
The 1950s saw the rise of the United States as an economic superpower. Our economy grew by 30% in a decade [shmoop.com], a radical change over today's sluggish quarter-percentage improvements. However, it's clear by the fact you got modded up and my post down, that slashdot is increasingly a place where people are apparently oblivious to historical realities, preferring instead revisionist history that makes all times in the past the same as they are in the present.
And how much of this has to do with wanting to work outside the house or your perceptions or what really qualifies as "nice?"
It has nothing to do with either. In the 50s, most fami
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In the 1950s "single-income" meant the man worked and the woman raised the kids. And there's nothing wrong with that setup. That's my family, too. But increasingly women have been finding the opportunity to work outside the home available to them. Is it any surprise that some would avail themselves of that opportunity? I think it's incorrect to assert that the rise in dual-income households is not partially attributable to an increase in equality between the sexes.
How do you get from no COPPA to no red ligh
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I think it's incorrect to assert that the rise in dual-income households is not partially attributable to an increase in equality between the sexes.
I was stating that there has been a change; I have said nothing about its cause.
How do you get from no COPPA to no red lights? You attacked Darkness for being "Slippery Slope Internet Guy(tm)" when he suggested that COPPA is a step on the path to killing the internet with regulation. But at least those two things are dealing with regulation of the same thing.
The original poster was saying that "regulation will kill the internet". Not this regulation, but any regulation. This is stupid: Traffic laws are regulations, and they didn't kill the automobile. They didn't kill transportation.
And could you please tone down the insults, some?
I'm pointing out egregious failures in basic logic. If that's insulting to you, then I suggest you describe your position better and/or not defend a position so obviously flawed.
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I agree with most of your post, except...
Children do need to be protected online.
Wait - why? There are no laws in the physical realm that require shopkeepers or suchlike to treat any child wandering in with kid gloves, and there is no real-world equivalent of COPPA out here. Instead, parents watch what their kids do when outside the home, and there are laws in place which either prevent or punish any dumbass trying to prey on a child. The Internet can use those same laws, since it isn't some alternate universe, but the same world we live in now -
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Actually there are loads of real-life protections for kids. They can't make contracts, can't agree to certain activities like sex. You can't sell them cigarettes or some weapons. Even coercing them to go somewhere with you is usually illegal without parental consent.
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Any business that has kids as clients has Protocols in place to deal with loose kids (does Code Adam ring a bell for you??).
Trust me the Legal Department rather likes not having to deal with a Pissed Off Parent. And btw Employees are mostly not allowed to touch kids (with some slack for things like doing a Fitting and such).
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There are also real-life protections for kids against bad parenting. If my child won't stop talking and I beat him up to keep him quiet, Child Protective Services would quickly see to it that he is kept safely away from me.
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What is needed isn't new laws, but better technology training for police departments. When my identity was stolen, the police department was able to obtain a copy of the online form that was submitted for the credit card the thieves took out under my name. However, even with the IP address and the timestamp of when it was submitted right there, they were clueless as to what their next step should be. Police departments need to be able to keep pace with online actions. If someone is being harassed online
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Given the way pay has been stagnant for years while costs haven't been, I's have to say a lot of it is that a lot fewer people can actually afford to be single income families anymore.
If the government REALLY wants to do something for the children, it can tackle that problem.
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Unions would help a great deal. As for corruption, there is some and some of it has been fairly extreme, but I suspect not nearly as much as is perceived.
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is not true for everyone now. And how much of this has to do with wanting to work outside the house or your perceptions or what really qualifies as "nice?"
This is true, depending on where you live. In the US Midwest, we have no problem with me being the only one working. That is because we live within our means. Humble house (paid off in 11 years), used cars, used electronics. If you want to be a consumer, it will take more money and a 2 income household.
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You'd have to teach those to the parents first.
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Organizations have a hard enough time explaining to their adult employees how to avoid phishing scams and the like, and they have knowledgeable professionals doing the training. It is wholly unrealistic to expect one or two individual parents to be able to adequately protect the privacy and information security of minors against entities that have the drive and resources of Facebook.
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How about we stop it with the nanny-state crap and FUD about online and have parents -gasp- parent? You know, like tell you kids basic stuff like don't give out addresses online, don't go meet people online, etc. This will be a never ending battle, anytime a kid does something stupid and gets hurt because of it people will petition the government to "do something" and slowly the internet gets regulated to death. Seriously, how hard is it to tell your kid don't tell someone where you are and don't meet them?
Most adults can't even get these things right. Especially when it comes to things like geotagged images from a cellphone. They're going to teach kids things they don't know how to do? Righteous!
The reality is most people don't even know stuff like that is included in photo metadata. For that matter, most people probably have never even heard of metadata.
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Re:How about... actually giving a crap? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's why kids fall for things like opening themselves up to ridicule and bullying on sites like formspring or (while it existed) dailybooth, where junior-high-schoolers I knew (and even middle-school kids below us) set themselves up to deviants and bullies asking them stupid salacious questions and they answered them. Now of course they brought a bit of it upon themselves by their own action, but sometimes it is up to those who are more responsible to get in the way of the weak from being trod upon, eh?
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Consumer laws exist to protect adults from sleazy car salesmen and criminally-intent stock-brokers (though kickstarter and the decrease in regulation of allowing funding of companies is going to kick down that safety net). IMHO it's okay to have laws that protect kids at or under the age of 13 from the nefarious intentions of the googler-corporations of the world. I know that the free-market-eers and the libertarians will say "let the free market work it out" and "let capitalism work it out", but sometimes regulations are necessary so that the young and weak are not exploited.
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Have you actually investigated the practical effects of COPPA? It results in companies like Google and Facebook simply imposing blanket bans on anyone who states they're under 13. It makes them universally persona-non-grata in the online world. I suppose that's one way to "protect" kids, but it's sort of like how locking them in the house can protect them from road accidents - a completely ridiculous solution to problems that are best solved other ways.
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Also makes things like Nintendo consoles to be extremel
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How about we start doing actual risk analysis and stop reacting on a purely emotional level. How about we recognize that the chances of my daughter being abducted at some point in her life are approx: 1: 610,000, and that her odds of dying in a plane crash are approx 1:310,000? Let's not even discuss the chances of her getting hit by a car. She's also way more likely to be stuck by lightning then either of the above (1:10,000, given our geographic locale during her lifetime)
There are SO many things I wou
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A few laws, another regu
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but it's hard to argue that parents can be expected to take full responsibility for complex technological restrictions that most people can't understand.
Well, that's really too bad for them then, isn't it? The occasional child getting hurt doesn't make laws like this worthwhile to me in the least.
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This might be a good thing... (Score:3)
This might keep video game websites from making you enter your date of birth to watch their videos!
I always wondered what the point of that was. Anyone who wants to see the video is going to lie about their age if they're under 18!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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How long is it before that's countered with the notion that not taking some measures to prevent people from lying about their age could be construed as allow underage people to use the services.
At least in a bar, you have to show some real ID... they won't just ask you your age and be satisfied with the answer if you look like you might be under the legal drinking age.
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So I guess these websites need to implement Leisure Suit Larry-style questionnaires to verify people's age, eh?
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Any suggestions? On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog [wikipedia.org].
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Then the bad parents will just tell the kids *their* code and we'll be right back where we started.
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I agree. If a child lies about their age, the parent should be punished for not preventing their child from lying.
How would you feel knowing your mom and or dad may be fined or even jailed simply because you wish it? Or are you going to claim you never once lied as a child?
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Of course not.
My point is that eventually, they might just assume that anyone is liable to lie about their own age, and a more objective form of proof is going to be required.
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Does this mean that if I enter my age as 10, sites can't track me?
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I was wondering about that. If we don't enter our information to sites, how do they know that we're old enough to be legally tracked?
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Which works fine for accounts where you log in, but most of the sites that are tracking me are sites where I don't log in. And where the tracking is done by 3rd parties where I'm being tracked before I'm presented with a ToS.
Under 18? (Score:2)
I'm nearly twice that age and I lie about my age on those things.
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Cripple the internet for all! This nonsense is the reason I can't get my daughter an email address without lying on some form somewhere, which itself is probably considered "hacking" or something similarly crazy
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"easy" way to deal with that is to get a Hosted Domain and then setup her email account on YOUR domain.
you can get a just about fully open (but secure) domain for like US$110ish and have all sorts of Fun.
Your Daughter wants a Website?? easy http://angel.intropy.org/ [intropy.org] would take all of say 10 minutes to setup and have a Drupal base install running.
Blog?? 5 minutes
Lobbying pays (Score:2)
Just another device to protect incumbents. This capitalism is starting to give free enterprise a bad name.
It is not a stricter law (Score:2)
Why only for children? Why not for adults too? (Score:1)
I wish the government would get serious about protecting the privacy of all citizens, not just those under 13 years old.
Future headline (Score:1)
Man who claims he posed as an underage minor for "privacy" protections is now in a lot of legal trouble. More details on what charges he faces and what you can do to protect your kids at 11.
Surely Unenforcable (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely any kid with two brain cels to rub together already knows to just lie about their age, or to use their best friend's e-mail for the parental approval?
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I have read the new rules. Their answer for the "what about kids that lie" is quite simply, "this issue is real but in our experience kids mostly tell the truth".
This is a stupid thing to say. Of course they tell the truth now because they were raised by their parents to do. But the COPPA rules are so extreme that almost no websites will actually attempt to meet their requirements. Instead what happens (on Facebook and Google and elsewhere) is that anyone who states they are under 13 is just banned. And onc
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Every single kid on Facebook or Google+ lied. You can't get an account if you're under 13.
Just what we need (Score:2)
Just what we need! A new law!
COPPA is ridiculous in the first place. (Score:3, Interesting)
As the father of a daughter who will be 13 in less than a week, I can say that COPPA was ridiculous in the first place. Like so many laws and regulations in place today, it provides nothing but the illusion of security. To those who believe it accomplished something... Sorry, but you've been had. Your kids likely have every account imaginable and because you're so naive you don't have a clue. Not only that, but because of the restrictions, your kids have been missing out on really good opportunities that they otherwise may have had.
Sadly because of COPPA, we haven't seen many services developed geared towards kids. Our children are likely missing out on huge educational opportunities simply due to the fact that providing internet services to them is such a pain in the ass. Frankly, it pisses me off because in my opinion, the government should have no say over what I allow my daughter to share online. Policing her is my job as her father, not yours. Knowing what I need to know to do so is also my problem. If I were to choose not to, that would be my own problem.
Tracking.. (Score:2)
So are we saying that if I go surfing the net everywhere claiming to be a 12 year old that I'll have a safer internet experience than being an adult?
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Children should not be allowed in it unsupervised.
It seems like you're generalizing here. I know a number of children who aren't imbeciles, and I myself wouldn't have been able to learn as many things as I did if I was only allowed to use the Internet when my parents were around.
These laws are stupid, but so are statements like that.