FTC Goes After Yelp Because Yelp Has The Audacity To Let Kids Use Its App

from the wait,-what's-the-problem-exactly? dept

For years now, we've discussed the ridiculousness of the COPPA law (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). The rallying cry of "protect the children!" quite frequently leads to very poor policy decisions, and COPPA (and the enforcement around it) is a perfect example of that. While there might possibly be good intentions behind the law, the practical reality is that it's a joke. It effectively places a much larger burden on any site that allows anyone under 13 to use the site. While, in practice, it's supposed to only apply to sites that are targeted to kids, in an attempt to avoid that, many sites put a blanket ban on those under 13. In our own terms of service we explicitly tell anyone under 13 not to register with our site. Our lawyers more or less insisted that we had to do this, and plenty of other sites do the same. So the end result is that kids under 13, who often should be using the internet, are told that they can't use large parts of the internet -- including sites that are useful to their education. But of course many of them still use the internet. They just lie about it. In fact, one researcher found that the only practical effect of the law is that it leads parents to teach their kids that it's okay to lie. Even worse, the FTC seems entirely unconcerned about the real impact of the law -- but prefers to insist that it's really protecting children, despite no actual evidence to support this. In fact, the FTC has even pushed to expand the law.

The FTC has now gone after its latest COPPA "violator": Yelp. According to the complaint filed against the company Yelp had the audacity to let kids under 13 register for its service via the company's iOS and Android apps. And then? Well, I assume that the very small number of kids who did so, used the app to *gasp* find reviews on restaurants and such things. The FTC complaint doesn't present any evidence of any actual harm here. Just the fact that it let a small number of kids register, and then didn't meet all the checkbox requirements of "protecting the children."

I'm honestly curious if the "consumer protection division" at the FTC thinks that kids would be better off if they were blocked from using Yelp entirely, or if they just think,"Aha, gotcha!" when they file these kinds of lawsuits?

Filed Under: apps, coppa, ftc, protect the children, under 13
Companies: yelp

The Unintended Consequences Of Trying To Overprotect Children From The Internet

from the they-lie-and-new-services-aren't-developed dept

A few months ago, we mentioned the ridiculousness of the the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which has strict rules for any sites that target services to children under the age of 13. It's one of those "for the children!" laws that are so popular with politicians, but which never seem to have any basis in evidence, and never seem to consider the unintended consequences. Under the law, as we noted, any site that wants to target kids has to meet certain very high standards, requiring permission from parents. In theory (and in a total vacuum) perhaps this sounds good. But the real impact is that very few sites look to create useful internet services for kids... and kids learn pretty early in their youth how to lie about their age online.

Jeff Jarvis recently was on a conference call about COPPA where he asked an FTC attorney some questions about COPPA, the actual research behind it, and the unintended consequences -- and seemed to get back the conference call equivalent of a blank stare:

I asked Mamie Kresses, senior attorney for the FTC’s Division of Advertising Practices, whether there had been any study about how truthful children are reporting their ages online. They have no such research, she said. I asked whether the FTC had any data about how often parents use the means of notice and consent COPPA provides. None, she said.

The most disturbing unintended consequence of the regulation, I think, is the chill it likely puts on serving children online. In the early days of the web, I started the Yuckiest Site on the Internet — about goo, bugs, and science — to serve young readers at the local news sites I ran. After COPPA, my employer decided the risk in serving young people and even inadvertently recording a child’s name or targeting an ad was too great.

We don’t know how many sites have not been started to serve children online. Isn’t this the group we should be serving best? I asked Kresses whether the FTC had done research on the extent of a chill. No, she said.

Finally, I asked whether the FTC had revisited the reasons for COPPA. What harm are we trying to prevent by restricting identity online — and is it effective? She responded with circular logic: They are giving parents the opportunity of notice and consent regarding children’s information.

From there, he points out that we shouldn't base our entire policy on the assumption that the worst case scenario will happen to all kids. As he notes, kids are still kidnapped, but we still let them play outside. This doesn't mean we should let them run wild online -- just like we don't let kids run wild outside, either. But the rules, as set today, effectively say that children can only run outside in a few very inconvenient parks. We're overprotecting. And, as Jarvis notes, the ability to play online is important:

Children need to play online, too. They should create and get credit for their creativity. They should be able to establish a relationship with an educational site where they can track their own progress. Technology and the net don’t just present danger; they afford opportunity. But by focusing only on the former, we can risk losing sight of the latter.

Filed Under: coppa, ftc, privacy, protect the children, under 13

On the Internet, Google+ Knows You're A TOS-Violating 10-Year-Old Dog

from the unintended-consequences dept

theodp writes

"In its tear-jerker 'Dear Sophie' Google Chrome ad, a father creates a Gmail account (dear.sophie.lee@gmail.com) for his just-born daughter to preserve memories of her childhood. So, how does that work out in real life? Not so good, at least in the case of 10-year-old Alex Sutherland, who the WSJ reports was reduced to tears after being notified that the Gmail account his father created on his behalf two years earlier would be deleted because the Google+ Profile Alex created triggered a Google Terms of Service age violation. 'You made my son cry, Google,' wrote blogger Martin Sutherland. 'I'm not inclined to forgive that.' Not to pile on, but Alex may also be persona non grata at Khan Academy, where learning under the age of 13 can also constitute a TOS violation."

To be fair, the "under 13" age issue is not something that should be blamed on Google, Khan Academy or any other site (and, really, if theodp wanted to be accurate, he could list most of the top sites on the internet, who all have this same restriction). It's (of course!) the result of poorly thought out legislation. Namely, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act -- another one of these "for the children" laws that politicians love to pass without thinking about the unintended consequences. Here, as in many cases, the intentions may be good: to prevent websites from collecting too much info from children who don't quite recognize what they're doing, but the actual results are that most sites simply put in their terms of service that the site is not for people under 13, even if everyone assumes that those under 13 still use those sites.

Of course, even bringing up how silly this is can lead to backlash. When Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested that perhaps the law needed some rethinking to make it more reasonable for those under 13 to use useful parts of the internet, it was dubbed "controversial", and he had to clarify his remarks to make clear that he wasn't trying to get under 13 kids on the site any time soon.

Either way, it does seem silly for Google to put out a commercial in which a father creates an email address for someone under 13... when it's taking away accounts from others who do the same thing...

Filed Under: coppa, terms of service, under 13
Companies: google, khan academy