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Digital Marketing Minute: A Bad Review for Yelp

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced last week that Yelp – the online service through which consumers can read and write reviews about local businesses – has agreed to pay $450,000 to settle the FTC’s charges that Yelp knowingly and without verifiable parental consent (VPC), collected personal information from children under the age of 13 through its mobile app in violation of the federal law, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

COPPA was enacted in 1998. The FTC, which is responsible for enforcing COPPA, implemented regulations in April 2000 that are known as the COPPA Rule. The FTC issued an amended COPPA Rule in December 2012, which became effective July 1, 2013. 

In general, COPPA and the COPPA Rule prohibit operators of websites, mobile applications or other digital services (collectively, “digital services”) from knowingly collecting personal information from children under age 13 unless and until the digital service operator has VPC. 

Under the amended COPPA Rule, COPPA has a broader scope than digital service operators may realize.  COPPA applies not only to digital services that are directed to children, but also to any general-audience digital service when the operator of the digital service has “actual knowledge” that the digital services is collecting personal information from children under age 13 without VPC. 

COPPA does not require operators of general-audience digital services to ask users for age or date of birth information but, under the actual knowledge test, if the digital service collects information that establishes that a user is under 13, the digital service must be COPPA compliant, which means (among other requirements) obtaining VPC before collecting personal information from the under-age-13 user.

The FTC concluded that Yelp had “actual knowledge” that it was collecting personal information from children under age 13 because the registration page on Yelp’s app asked users to enter their date of birth but did not block access to the app for users who were too young (i.e., under age 13).   

Key Takeaway: If your general-audience digital service asks a user for his or her birth date, make sure that a user who is under age 13 is blocked from using the digital service.  Also, to help prevent users who are too young from circumventing the block, consider one or all of the following techniques:

  1. Request birth date in a neutral manner, i.e., no prompt is given to the age of eligibility, such as “You must be age 13 or older to register.”
  2. Present a neutral on-screen error message when a user is under age 13, such as “Sorry, you’re not eligible,” rather than “Sorry, you are under age 13.”
  3. Deploy a cookie or other functionality to prevent an under-age user whose access was blocked from using the back button (or similar technique) to re-enter an old-enough birth date.      



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In with the New: 2014 Privacy, Advertising and Digital Media Predictions

Data privacy and security made the headlines practically daily in 2013.  Our second annual Privacy and Data Protection 2013 Year in Review topped 65 pages!

What privacy, advertising and digital media trends will make headlines in 2014? Here are predictions from Of Digital Interest’s U.S. editorial team:

User Tracking Law Enforcement in California: “Amendments to the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) took effect on January 1, 2014 that require every website that is available to California residents to disclose how it responds to Do Not Track signals from web browsers and what third party data collection is occurring on the website.  I predict that we will see enforcement activity from the California Attorney General about whether website owners/operators have made disclosures to consumers that not only meet the new CalOPPA requirements but also accurately reflect tracking activities by the website and by third parties.”  – Heather Egan Sussman, Partner

No Kid-ding:  “January 1 marked the six-month anniversary of the effective date of the amended “COPPA Rule,” which requires businesses to have parental consent before personal information is collected from kids under age 13.  Having just approved a parental consent method (in December), I predict that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will initiate COPPA enforcement actions related to social media (now that photos and videos are personal information under COPPA) and in mobile apps (now that COPPA covers geo-location data).  Perhaps the FTC will start by investigating the app developers to which the FTC sent letters explaining their new COPPA compliance responsibilities last May.”  – Julia Jacobson, Partner

Safe Harbor Will Stay Safe:  “Last year’s government surveillance accusations made the U.S. Safe Harbor Program a flash point for debate between EU and U.S. data protection regulators.  Nevertheless, very few on either side of the Atlantic believe that companies properly certified under the Safe Harbor Program should disrupt data transfers necessary to meet credible business objectives.   I predict that the rhetoric will continue, but so will the U.S. Safe Harbor Program, albeit perhaps tweaked in response to the European Commission’s recently-issued recommendations to improve the Progam’s effectiveness.   More debate to come in 2014, but, meanwhile, many U.S. companies will continue to view Safe Harbor certification as their preferred approach to E.U. data protection compliance and will continue to implement data protection policies and programs intended to comply with the Safe Harbor Principles.”  – Ann Killilea, Counsel

Cloudy Forecast:  “The year of 2014 is quickly becoming the year of the mega-sized data breach, with the Target and Neiman Marcus incidents leading the way.  Corporate customers have long been aware that cloud offerings present data security concerns, but may not have been as laser-focused on the data breach aspects as they should.  I predict that in 2014, as the cloud service market becomes a commercial fact of life, data breach concerns will dominate how customers select and contract with their cloud service providers, and how they implement their incident response plans by including cloud service providers in their preparations.”  – [...]

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Consumer Data Privacy Update for Marketers, Part 1: Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Amendments

New technologies enable marketers to collect and analyze more — and more specific— data than ever before.  Marketers can track consumers across the internet and mobile applications, and can deliver advertising based on consumers’ interests inferred from the collected data.  In theory, consumer tracking enables marketers to present advertising to consumers who are predisposed to a specific product or service, producing a higher purchase rate and transaction price, and a greater return on investment in marketing activities.

While these new technologies make advertising and marketing more targeted and efficient, they also present new challenges for marketers.  Although a majority of consumers understand the “pay with data” model through which websites, mobile applications and other digital services are made available at no cost, they do not want advertisers to track them or to aggregate the tracking data into so-called “big data” databases.  Consequently, consumer digital privacy has been the subject of many recent news articles – from lawsuits filed by consumers against email service providers and social media platforms for undisclosed data mining to senatorial requests to data brokers for transparency.

In this four-part series, we will highlight of some recent developments in consumer data privacy law and suggested steps for marketers on how to address them.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Amendments

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is a federal statute enacted in 1998 that requires operators of commercial digital services to provide parental notification and obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13.  To implement COPPA, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a set of regulations known as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule).  On December 19, 2012, the FTC released amendments to the COPPA Rule which became effective July 1, 2013.

The amended COPPA Rule enhances online privacy protection for children and makes digital services’ operators more accountable for data collection activities involving children under age 13.  Notable for marketers is a new liability standard for third-party service providers.  Specifically, effective July 1, 2013:

  • The operator of “children-directed” (i.e., intended for children under age 13) online or mobile websites and services is strictly liable for actions of independent third parties – including social media plug-ins – on/through its website and mobile services if the third party is acting as its agent or service provider or if the operator benefits by allowing the third party information collection; and
  • A software plug-in, ad network or similar party that collects information on or through a third-party’s online or mobile website or service now is liable under COPPA if that party has actual knowledge it is collecting personal information on a children-directed platform.

The amended COPPA Rule makes several other key changes to the original COPPA Rule, including:

  • An expanded definition of personal information to include geo-location information, a child’s photo or audio or video file, screen or user names, and persistent identifiers, such as information held in a cookie, an IP address, a mobile device [...]

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