The operator of www.skidekids.com, a website that advertises itself as the “Facebook and Myspace for Kids,” has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that he collected personally information from approximately 5,600 children without obtaining prior parental consent, in violation of the Commission’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) Rule. The FTC’s complaint also charges the operator, Jones O. Godwin, with making deceptive claims in Skid-e-kids’ privacy policy about the site’s information collection practices. The proposed settlement will bar future violations of COPPA and misrepresentations about the collection, use and disclosure of children’s information.
Skid-e-Kids had a Privacy Policy that “requires child users to provide a parent’s valid email address in order to register on the website.” In practice, however, that was not the case. Children were required to provide a birth date, gender, user name, password and email address prior to using the website. Once that information was provided, the child was automatically registered on the website. To make matters worse, Skid-e-Kids did not even request a parent’s email address and made no attempt to notify parents or obtain parental consent.
This week, Jones O. Godwin, operator of the Skid-e-Kids website, entered into a Consent Decree, agreeing to comply with COPPA and to delete personal information obtained from children without parental consent. Godwin was also required to pay a civil penalty of $100,000, all but $1,000 of which was suspended pending compliance with COPPA and the Consent Decree for the next ten years. The Consent Decree also requires Godwin to retain an independent third party to assess the site’s compliance with COPPA for the next five years.
LESSON LEARNED: It's not enough to have website terms and conditions that are compliant with applicable laws. Website operators must ABIDE by them as well. Compliance with COPPA is merely one example - there are numerous FTC rules that may affect various types of websites.