The Value Of Privacy

This FTC release details what can happen to web sites that collect infomation about underage users without parental consent. "The FTC charged Monarch Services, Inc. and Girls Life, Inc., operators of www.girlslife.com; Bigmailbox.com, Inc., and Nolan Quan, operators of www.bigmailbox.com; and Looksmart Ltd., operator of www.insidetheweb.com with illegally collecting personally identifying information from children under 13 years of age without parental consent, in violation of the COPPA Rule." For collecting things like name and age (and in the case of the BigMailbox.com, making the info available to a 3rd party), the three companies were fined a sum of 100,000 dollars. You might like to read more on COPPA as well, and then the Center for Media Education's report on COPPA. In related news, Spain imposed a fine on Microsoft for violating Spanish laws on data-transfer, for transfering employee information from servers in Spain to the U.S.