The Federal Trade Commission has settled with three Web operators for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The operators were charged with illegally collecting personally identifying information, including full name and home address, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers, from children under 13 years of age without parental consent. These cases mark the first civil penalty cases the FTC has brought under the COPPA Rule.
The companies charged are Monarch Services Inc. and Girls Life Inc., operators of www.girlslife.com; Bigmailbox.com Inc.; and Nolan Quan, operators of www.bigmailbox.com; and Looksmart Ltd., operator of www.insidetheweb.com, according to a statement released by the FTC.
The FTC said it also found that none of the Web sites posted privacy policies that complied with the act or obtained the required consent from parents prior to the collection of their children’s personally identifiable information, as required by COPPA.
Terms of the settlement require the operators to delete all personally identifying information collected from children online at any time since the rule’s effective date of April 21, 2000.
In addition the companies made a collective payment of $100,000 in civil penalties for the COPPA violations and the three are required to comply with COPPA in connection with any future online collection of personally identifying information from children under 13. Girlslife paid $30,000 while BigMailbox and Looksmart each paid $35,000, the FTC said.
Girlslife.com targets girls aged 9 to 14, offering features such as online articles and advice columns, contests, and pen-pal opportunities. Partnering with BigMailbox.com and Looksmart Ltd., it also offered children free e-mail accounts and online message boards. In addition, the BigMailbox privacy policy falsely claimed, among other things, that children under 13 could not open an e-mail account without prior parental consent, the FTC said.
While the Web sites collected children’s personal information for their own internal uses, BigMailbox was charged with providing children’s personal information to third parties without prior parental consent. The FTC also charged that all three operators required children to disclose more personal information than was needed for participation in the activities involved, a practice that also violates COPPA.
The COPPA rule requires that Web sites post a complete privacy policy, and directly notify parents of their information collection practices and get verifiable parental consent before they collect children’s personal information or share that information with others.
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