MSNBC — Sep 6 — Social networking site Xanga will pay $1 million — the largest penalty ever issued for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act — for allowing the creation of 1.7 million accounts by users who submitted birthdays indicating they were under 13, without getting their parent’s consent. Collecting personal information from anyone under 13 without parental consent is a violation of the children’s protection act, or COPPA, which was passed by Congress in 1998.
Can anyone tell me, did Xanga ask for age and then have a button that said “I have parental consent” and that wasn’t good enough? Or did it never ask for parental consent at all?
I have a website http://www.ffximog.com which is for the Final Fantasy XI online game players. Playonline (FFXI owners) requires that to be a member, you must be 13 or older and with parental consent. Our site is for those who play, so it is clearly on our join page that you must be 13 or older and have parental consent if you are under 18. And it has a button that you agree to the requirements and if you’re under 18 have parental consent and that you are 13 or older.
We only ask for birthdays, we don’t ask for real names, we ask for email addresses which are only used by us to send mail notices, we have posted in a lot of places for them to never meet someone offline without a parent’s permission, etc. etc. And when entering city and state, we even encourage them to list “Southern California” instead of the exact city, etc.
So now I’m concerned about our liability. I know 12 year olds and younger do play the game even though violating the rules, so I would suspect they would create a profile on our site too. If they clearly listed their age is 12, even a month short of 12, we would delete their account.
So what is the requirement so you aren’t liable for those who join anyway? Is the agreement button and disclaimer enough? Anyone know?
Thanks!
Nannette Thacker
http://www.ffximog.com
Where Fantasy Meets Reality!