• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, July 1, 2013

Without much fanfare, today new online regulations designed to protect the privacy of children under 13 go into effect. The new Federal Trade Commission rules are getting mixed reaction.

The rules are a reworking of the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). They ban behavioral advertising to kids, unless parents are told and give consent, so as to prevent targeting kids by looking at their browsing history.

 The new rules also expand the definition of "personal information" to include geolocation data, and photos, videos and audio files.

But according to a story from the French wire service AFP, “implementation could lead to some confusion because strict limits apply only when Websites are ‘directed’ at children. Some critics claim this could stifle some Websites by forcing them to demand age verification. The Application Developers Alliance, which represents some 20,000 app makers, had asked for a delay in the rules, saying the changes ‘are so significant and the penalties so severe that, absent delay, many developers and publishers will simply stop publishing, placing their entire business at risk.’ ”

That might be a pretty big fly in the ointment, but 19 public health, consumer and digital rights groups endorsed the new rules, the AFP story points out. 

The new rule does seem to be pretty confusing. For example, in a dispatch titled, “Online Sites and Services Unprepared for July 1 Privacy Law Changes” from the Edward Wildman law firm, attorney Alan L. Friel, writes, “The The New Rule creates a new category of so-called mixed use service for sites and apps that may in part be directed to children but not primarily so. These sites and services must now age screen users in a neutral manner, and treat them differently based on self-reported age. They cannot block children under 13 completely, but must offer them COPPA-compliant services.

“This may make it more difficult for sites and apps intended for teens or parents of toddlers and pre-school children to take the position that they are general audience sites that only have COPPA obligations if they have actual knowledge a user is under 13 and have no obligation to inquire. There are steps these operators can take to improve their position if they elect not to completely age-gate their site or service.”

Jumptap.com, the audience platform that reaches over 218 million mobile users in the U.S. and has built 100 million unique audience profiles, in an earlier post, noted “many services aimed at children may not have previously paid much attention to COPPA because they were ad supported and did not collect personal information, as it was then defined. But with the expanded definition, a service that passes to an analytics company or an ad network a persistent identifier such as a cookie, device ID or an IP address is now subject to COPPA.” 

Jumptap also points it has always been its policy “not to use information from children’s sites for behavioral advertising.” It advised Website publishers unsure about whether their site would be considered to be aimed at children by the FTC to take the logical steps: Look at the content, the use of animated characters and  the presence of celebrities who kidslike. Of course reviewing the FTC’s guidance would be a good place to start. And as the Wildman advisory on the rules point out, "Civil penalties for violation of the New Rule can be up to $16,000 per instance, and recent COPPA settlements [under the previous rule] have been in the six and seven figure range."

pj@mediapost.com