FTC Fines Xanga for Violating Kids' Privacy 200
WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, the FTC has fined Xanga.com $1 million dollars for repeatedly allowing children under 13 to sign up for the service without getting their parent's consent. This is the largest penalty ever issued for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act." From the article: "'Protecting kids' privacy online is a top priority for America's parents, and for the FTC,' FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement. 'COPPA requires all commercial Web sites, including operators of social networking sites like Xanga, to give parents notice and obtain their consent before collecting personal information from kids they know are under 13. A million-dollar penalty should make that obligation crystal clear.'" What impact, if any, do you think this will have on other community sites that may not always follow the COPPA statutes?
what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, they seem to have broken the law, it doesn't matter that the law has no value.
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
If, as you admit, there is no reasonable way for a website to enforce minimum-age restrictions, then the law is unjust and should not be upheld. Indeed, it will be a good thing for the company to take the FTC to court and get the law struck down, not only as unconstitutional, but hopefully as stupid also. That might send a message to legislators who cry out "But think of the children!" and pass dumb laws as part of their election campaigns.
Re:Am I over 13 yes yes yes (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a shame that someone will actually have to pay a fine for this bullshit, but really, they shoulda known.
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:1, Insightful)
Childs right to privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets make up our minds, ok?
Misguided, overzealous propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
The policy makes sense, parents should know what their pre-teen children are doing. The problem is that this is the parents responsibility, not the website providing the service. It's one thing for a movie theater or porn-shop to let minors in, it's on their premises. These kids are (mostly) accessing the internet from their own home, where the parents should be able to monitor their activities.
There's only so much that can be done and putting a million dollar fine on Xanga is a completely ridiculous way to try and make the government look like it's actually doing something to help the problem. They're laying a huge portion of the blame in the wrong camp.
There is a problem, this is clearly an overzealous attempt at creating an appearance of action to hide the fact that there is simply nothing effective that they can really do. Xanga is the unfortunate victim.
What effect will the websites have on the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws like this are clearly unenforceable. More importantly, it is not morally the website's job to police the people who visit it. It's the job of the parents. Legislators don't seem to win their positions based on campaigns of parental responsibility, however. The trend seems to be "blame everyone else for your kid's problems".
Look at the crap going on involving Grand Theft Auto: someone makes a game modification to show a tit, a tit that isn't even available without modifying the game, and tons of legislators go apeshit about how it's inappropriate for children. Clearly these people aren't worried about justice, and instead are worried about winning the votes of emotional parents, the Security Moms.
A reasonable argument can be made that, for example, liquor stores have a duty to prevent children from buying alcohol in them. However, you must also consider that it is extremely easy and reliable to verify the age of store patrons. No analogy exists online -- it is impossible.
Expecting websites to perform such policing is unquestionably unfair, and I suspect that the courts will agree. The law might have effect on some websites in the short term. In the long term, the websites will have the law overturned as unreasonable.
We just have to hope that the justices who hear these cases really have an interest in justice, unlike the legislators who passed these braindead laws in the first place.
America needs to raise its own damn children (and I say this as an American)
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What effect will the websites have on the law? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and no. The US is really schitzophrenic about this. On one hand it's hyperprotective about ludicrous bullshit (cf: GTA) and on the other hand it won't even provide decent free lunches to poor kids. It's sort of baffling.
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, the kids who did get in were lying anyways. Everyone who wanted to register had to check a box saying that A) They were over 13, and B) they read the terms of service. My guess is that the Xanga designers thought that that was a good enough age check, and they didn't bother writing in code that actually checked the date of birth entered, because the users were already affirming that they were over 13 by checking the box.
Basically the FTC is saying that Xanga needs to make sure the kids are smart enough to lie in 2 different places (both by checking the box saying that they are over 13 and entering a fake date of birth), and because they didn't do that they should have to pay a fine. The solution of forcing the under 13 year olds to lie about their birthdate really doesn't solve anything at all... I know that i personally just used a fake birthdate when I was registering for over 18 sites as a kid, and there's really not going to be anything stopping the under 13 crowd from lying about their age as well.
Re:What About the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids' Privacy is a top priority (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't the government's problem to solve - it belongs to the parents.
Of course, it's the US, so it'll never fall in the lap of the sperm & egg donor.
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
"COPPA requires all commercial Web sites, including operators of social networking sites like Xanga, to give parents notice and obtain their consent before collecting personal information from kids they know are under 13."
So it's not as simple as the FTC saying that kids should just be able to lie in two different places. Now, how exactly parental consent is supposed to be given is another issue. And of course, there are ways to lie about that as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to jump on the "But what about the children!" bandwagon. But at the same time, not every piece of legislation about protecting children is automatically going to be bullshit just because people here on Slashdot think so. Yeah, things like COPPA could very well be unworkable solutions to the problem. Just in this thread, as well as other comments on this article, plenty of flaws in executing laws such as this are being highlighted. The issue can't just be ignored, though.
Oh, and finally, Xanga should have known full well what their obligations were by law (whether or not the law is crap), and they could have easily covered their asses. So I have no sympathy for them in this matter.
Re:what does this accomplish (Score:5, Insightful)
Because:
Re:What about the parents? (Score:4, Insightful)
We act like we weren't children and we'll be the ultimate parents. We'll know where our kids are 24/7 and have RFID tags in their penis to stop them getting anyone pregnant or whatever magic pixie dust solution it is.
50 years ago kids did stuff they shouldn't, 1000 years ago they did, even today they do. That's because it's what kids do. If they can't get on Xanga/MySpace/whatever at home they will find a way to do it. Beg, borrow or steal you'll not stop a kid who desires something you try to keep out of his hands.
We bitch about over-protective soccer mums and then act like every bad kid is bad because the parents didn't do "the right thing". SHUT UP ABOUT IT! Some kids are just bad, some kids are just nerds, some kids want to screw their mother. That is how life is, everyone is different and while on mass people are generally okay that does not mean there are no bad apples and "parenting" can fix the ones that are.
Some times it's not possible to babysit your kids every second of the day. You have other things to do and hope for the best, most of the time it works out and you get away with it but once in a while it doesn't. This is not bad parenting, this is being a HUMAN BEING. Maybe we should hand-cuff parents and kids together, after all it's not like mothers and fathers need to pee any more, so it's fine if their kids follow them every where right?
I know this is rather trollish but damn it, you guys need to get off your high horses and accept that parents are meer mortals just like us! They can't be in 6 places at once and some times the greater evil comes before going Big brother on their 12 year old reading e-mails from their friends about how awesomely cool Ninja turtles was this week.
This puts the burden on the wrong people (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about the parents? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. NO computer in their room until they are 18. Sorry.....doesn't happen. Not saying they can have thier own, it just WILL NOT be in their room.
2. No computer use period if one of us isn't either home or awake. Break the rules and I will know (I will use Linux and check the access logs....).
3. Any violation of said rules will result in their computer turning into a server for dad's use.
Now I am a geek....things will be different in my house because I know how to do these things. If I didn't, I would only take away the log thing (as I would not know how to do it...thank god I am a geek).
This sounds draconian, but even I did not know enough to stay away from things like this until I was about 20 believe it or not. I remember when I was 20, I met a girl online and went to go meet her at her house. Found out she was 15. She told me she was 19. I counselled her a little and then left a little wiser. If I didn't quiz her on her real age, I could have went to jail and been labelled a sexual predator. From then on, I knew better. The bad thing that may have happened if the roles were reversed and I wasn't a nice guy. Kids simply do not have the where with all to understand how unsafe talking to people online can be especially if they go from the virtual world to meat space.
Oh I accept that at certain times, they will be out of my control. However, it's really easy to just meet the parents of thier best friends. Even simply a phone call would be more then enough for me to get what is going to happen at the friends house. It's surpising to me how many people take the stance that you can't know everything about your child. It must be beneath parents to talk to their kids! By just talking to my son, I knew his friends were Garrick and Nicholas and by the end of the school year, I knew thier parents pretty well and all I did was talk to them. I'd have let him go to either of his best friends house.
It's ok to have friends outside of your kids lives, but it's best to try to make friends with the parents of any of your kids best friends.
Just little things like this makes it pretty easy to know what your kid is doing and when. Its called parental responsibility.
Re:COPPA does not exist to be a pain (Score:3, Insightful)
In short "think of the children" political rhetoric. Where is the parent in all this questionable legislation? What makes you think COPPA is valid globally? COPPA DOES exist to be a pain as well as political poll "feel good" points. Add to that the revenue in fines like this and it is business as usual in Washington, DC.
An unjust and unenforceable law can and should be overturned. If not by Congress then by the courts. Most ineffective laws that are passed like this one get shot down sooner or later.
You should have stopped right there but no, you go on with...
Horseshit! More of the "think of the children" rhetoric when the responsibility should lie solely and squarely in the hands of parents. If your child isn't savvy enough to figure out what information is "safe" to give, then they shouldn't have access to the internet unsupervised. That is the proper role of a parent. There is never a good reason to assign the role of parenting to the government.
Which makes COPPA even more unenforceable and harder to implement. Now, instead of one level of verification, a site owner has many to contend with. For every level of complexity in any law, there are at least 1000 gray areas that fall between those levels. It is a result of knee-jerk politically motivated legislation like COPPA that makes companies move offshore to avoid this silliness. Does that mean that they are any less accessable to those under 13? Again, COPPA is simply a "feel good and get reelected" piece of legislation that has no meaning outside of the US.
Again, what affect does this have globally? Just how are you going to enforce this globally? It is a US law valid only in the US. It is also easy to circumvent no matter how you dance around the issue. In short, it is an ineffective law enforced arbitrarily and capriciously based on morals inflicted by the government to do the job of parents.
Of course they are. Gotta finance the FTC somehow not to mention the vari
Re:COPPA does not exist to be a pain (Score:2, Insightful)
800#... call it yourself and lie. Or have a friend call it, and LIE. Do you have their voice on file? Are you going to record the call for future reference (in court)?
Signed form... And you have what exactly to compare that signature against?
And exactly how are you verifying that those presenting themselves as the parents are, in fact, the child's legal parent or guardian?