Webmaster Questions and Answers

Question: What has been going on with the new COPPA law? Is it working? Is it being enforced?

Answer: The new COPPA law is turning out to be a disaster for children, parents, and Websites.

Children are losing because hundreds of sites that contain content for children have restricted activities that those under the age of 13 can participate on. If you are under the age of 13 you can no longer chat on popular kid sites like Zeeks and Disney. And that's just the beginning...

Parents are losing because they are finding the law confusing and time consuming. Furthermore some parents are finding out that children are now going to more risky sites because "safe sites" like Disney have added many restrictions as a direct result of COPPA.

Finally, Websites (including Zeeks and Disney) are losing page impressions and traffic due to restrictions. Part of these restrictions are a result of costs associated with COPPA requirements. Zeeks was having to spend over $200,000 a year just to be compliant with COPPA!

So overall, it seems that these government restrictions have been a major failure and are now having an undesirable affect on all parties involved. Driving kids away from "safe sites" like Disney to more risky sites probably wasn't the original intention of the law.

For more information on COPPA click here.

Joe Tracy

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