• by Wendy Davis , 8 hours ago

The Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that would impose new restrictions on online companies' ability to collect and harness data from teens under 17.

The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) introducedby Senators Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), would expand the current children's privacy law by prohibiting website and app operators from knowingly serving targeted ads to users under 17 -- including ads based on those teens' online activity.

The measure, if enacted, would continue to allow companies to serve teens and young children with contextual ads -- meaning ads based on the content of the websites or apps where the ads are displayed.

The bill also would prohibit websites and apps from knowingly collecting personal data from users between the ages of 13 and 16 without their consent.

Currently, federal law prohibits online companies from knowingly collecting personal information from users under 13 without their parents' consent.

The bill's definition of personal information includes names, email addresses, biometrics, location information and pseudonymous identifiers like IP addresses and cookies.

The proposed law's restrictions would apply if companies have “actual knowledge” of users' ages, or “knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances.”

Markey called the Senate's move "a major step forward for protecting children and teens online."

"Kids, families, and parents have waited far too long for Congress to pass legislation and stop Big Tech’s relentless tracking and targeting of children and teens online," he stated Thursday afternoon.

The House Energy and Commerce committee on Thursday had been slated to consider a version of the bill, but Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Kentucky) withdrew the measure from the agenda in the afternoon, after learning of the bill's passage in the Senate.

"Since we've been here today, our staffs have continued to work towards a bipartisan agreement, and both sides feel there's been substantial progress towards a path forward," Guthrie said. "To that end, I've decided that we will not consider COPPA today."