FTC To Look Into Cost of Implementing Child Privacy Act
The Federal Trade Commission is set to determine what financial impact the rules it’s proposing to implement the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act will have on nonprofit groups and smaller companies with Internet sites for children.
Specifically the FTC wants to know by Aug. 6 what additional money the affected Web site operators estimate they will have to spend for more employees, training and data processing, professional services, and equipment.
The FTC, which also asked for possible alternative measures to reduce these compliance costs, said it was trying to make them flexible to minimize the financial, record-keeping and processing costs for all Web site operators.
Required by law to develop the implementing these regulations by Oct. 21, the FTC said it learned about the financial ramifications of its proposed rules on nonprofits and small-to-medium marketers with Web sites geared toward children in April shortly after unveiling its proposed rules
Those rules would require commercial and nonprofit Web sites directed to children or that collect information from children under the age of 13 to post notices about their practices on their sites and obtain verifiable parental consent — either by credit card, signed document or some other form of verification — before collecting that information or making it available to third parties.
Besides asking children’s Web site operators to comment on how they would be financially affected by the proposal, the FTC is asking them to: identify any duplicating, overlapping or conflicting federal, state or local rules; industry rules or policies governing the collection, use and dissemination of information about children that would comply with the propose rules.
The FTC is also asking affected Web site operators for information about their advertising revenues based in part on the number of children registering at their sites and how much money, if any, they realize from the sale or rental of information about children.
