Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Overview

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as the acronym COPPA is a United State federal law designed to protect children under 13 years of age from data collection. This law provides guidelines for websites regarding privacy policies, parental and/or guardian consent and marketing restrictions.

Background

Senator Richard Bryan introduced COPPA to the Senate on July 17th, 1998. Less than one year later, United States President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.^[1][2]

Developments

Google Settlement

On September 4th, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission announced that Google and YouTube would pay a $170 million settlement for allegations that YouTube channels had collected personal information without parental consent. They wrote, "The settlement requires Google and YouTube to pay $136 million to the FTC and $34 million to New York for allegedly violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule. The $136 million penalties is by far the largest amount the FTC has ever obtained in a COPPA case since Congress enacted the law in 1998."^[3]

In November 2019, the company announced changes to YouTube to comply with the law, requiring they properly label videos children's content. If creators fail to make the changes, YouTube creators may be fined up $42,000 for mislabeled videos.^[4]

According to the Verge,^[5] "The ruling means YouTube can’t employ its powerful ad-targeting system on anyone who might be under the age of 13 -- a dire problem for a platform with so many young users."

On November 12th, 2019, the YouTube Creators channel published a video on the new regulations. The post received more than 1.3 million views (shown below).

Criticism

Some YouTube creators loudly denounced the change, primarily because certain videos and topics that they believe do not target children are being affected. Collectible toy reviewer Dan Eardley told the Verge,^[5] "Creators are being held directly responsible by the FTC. So if the FTC decides that [we] are indeed targeting children, we’ll be fined. That is frightening. It’s especially scary because the verbiage of ‘kid directed’ vs ‘kid attractive’ isn’t very clear. It’s hard to know if we’re in violation or not."

Additionally, Eardley postd a series of tweets^[6] showing how his videos were labeled "made for kids" by YouTube (shown below).

YouTuber Christ Struckmann tweeted, "One of the dumbest things about all this #COPPA bullshit is the belief that animation is strictly for kids. That’s some old ass, out-of-touch thinking." The tweet received more than 5,200 likes and 900 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

One of the dumbest things about all this #COPPA bullshit is the belief that animation is strictly for kids. That’s some old ass, out-of-touch thinking. pic.twitter.com/s1UJmnpNMb

— Chris Stuckmann (@Chris_Stuckmann) November 19, 2019

Search Interest

External References