It affects commercial U.S. websites, but applies to third-party commercial
web sites
that schools permit their students to access, and may apply to commercial
portions of
other sites.
While non-profit sites are not covered by the act, the term is not defined
and
many non-profit sites, concerned about safety are complying nonetheless.
It also isn't restricted to sites aimed at children, but includes general
audience
sites where the sites have knowledge that they are dealing with someone
under thirteen.
(Such sites have to comply with COPPA, and frankly don't understand what
information
they have about their site visitors that might implicate COPPA.)
There are essentially three key aspects of COPPA:
Disclosure, Information Collection and Safety
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA),
enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, requires commercial website
operators to get
parental consent before collecting any personal information from kids under
13. COPPA
allows teachers to act on behalf of a parent during school activities
online, but does
not require them to do so.
COPPA has yet to be effectively enforced because judges keep ruling it
unconstitutional,
not unlike its predecessor, the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was
held to be
unconstitutional by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 1997.
To date, every federal judge to consider the legality of either CDA or COPPA
has found
that the Internet content regulation laws violate the First Amendment
because "there are
'no other reasonable measures' available to restrict access to minors,
without requiring
users to register or provide a credit card or other proof of identity before
gaining
access to restricted content.
Requiring adult Web users to do so would impermissibly burden the First
Amendment rights."
EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center)
"http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/" http://www.epic.org/
has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation
to ask the U.S. Supreme Court not to disturb the decision of the Third
Circuit Court of
Appeals that found the Child Online Protection Act to be unconstitutional.
Reading & Resources
Complete information on the COPPA litigation, including the text of the
brief opposing
Supreme Court review, is available at:
"http://www.epic.org/free_speech/copa/"
The Center for Media Education (CME)
"http://www.cme.org/"
has released a report, "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
- The First Year" which evaluates the level of compliance with the
law one year after it went into effect.
"http://www.cme.org/children/privacy/coppa_rept.pdf"
The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has
also issued a
highly readable report,
"Privacy Policies on Children's Websites: Do They Play By the Rules?"
"http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/jturow/privacyreport.pdf"
COPPA... has been ruled many times unconstitutional and is against the 1st
Amendment.
So how can WE as List Owners help in this or do we just shut down every
ListSERVE site?
---
In the Spirit of the Golden Cards,
O_/ Andrew Castiglione
_/| N2 in waiting, Referee Instructor,
__)\ Assessor/Mentor Grade 3
` \ o Ken Aston Camp Staff Member
Retired Registrar Region # 54 Area E Section 11
Co-Administrator/Owner of [log in to unmask]
Creator/Owner/Webmaster of... http://www.ayso-l.org
Artesia, CA.
Al Iverson wrote:
Come again?
http://www.echalk.com/erate_coppa.html
http://wiredkids.org/coppa1.html
Adam Bailey wrote:
>
> On 10/22/01 10:31 AM, Al Iverson <[log in to unmask]> wrote...
>
> >I thought COPPA was ruled unconstitutional?
>
> I think you're thinking of CDA.
>
> --
> Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois
> [log in to unmask] | Finger/Web for PGP
> [log in to unmask] | http://www.lull.org/adam/
--
Al Iverson -- [log in to unmask] -- Minneapolis, Minnesota
My spam-related website: http://www.spamresource.com/
Support Jazz in Minnesota! -- http://www.mnjazz.com/
All opinions are mine alone unless I state otherwise.
|
