FTC Senior Attorney Discusses COPPA Revisions

At the International Association of Privacy Professionals' annual privacy conference last week, FTC senior attorney Mamie Kresses discussed the new liability concerns for operators of websites and services due to the recent revisions to the FTC's COPPA Rule. (COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and the COPPA Rule, require, among other things, that operators of websites and services that are directed to children under 13, or that knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, obtain parental consent. We summarized these revisions in a client alert.)

The revised definition of "operator" includes (1) an operator of a child-directed site or service that allows outside services, such as plug-ins and advertising networks, to collect personal information from visits, and (2) a plug-in or ad network when it has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information through a child-directed website or service. According to Kresses, a