• The name and contact information (address, telephone number and email address) of all operators collecting or maintaining children's personal information through the Web site or online service. If more than one operator is collecting information at the site, the site may select and provide contact information for only one operator who will respond to all inquiries from parents about the site's privacy policies. Still, the names of all the operators must be listed in the notice.
• The kinds of personal information collected from children (for example, name, address, email address, hobbies, etc.) and how the information is collected - directly from the child or passively, say, through cookies.
• How the operator uses the personal information. For example, is it for marketing back to the child? Notifying contest winners? Allowing the child to make the information publicly available through a chat room?
• Whether the operator discloses information collected from children to third parties. If so, the operator also must disclose the kinds of businesses in which the third parties are engaged; the general purposes for which the information is used; whether the third parties have agreed to maintain the confidentiality and security of the information; and that the parent has the option to agree to the collection and use of the child's information without consenting to the disclosure of the information to third parties.
• That the operator may not require a child to disclose more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in an activity as a condition of participation.
• That the parent can review the child's personal information, ask to have it deleted and refuse to allow any further collection or use of the child's information. The notice also must state the procedures for the parent to follow.

Direct Notice to Parents
The notice to parents must contain the same information included on the notice on the Web site. In addition, an operator must notify a parent that it wishes to collect personal information from the child; that the parent's consent is required for the collection, use and disclosure of the information; and how the parent can provide consent. The notice to parents must be written clearly and understandably, and must not contain any unrelated or confusing information. An operator may use any one of a number of methods to notify a parent, including sending an email message to the parent or a notice by postal mail.

Verifiable Parental Consent
Before collecting, using or disclosing personal information from a child, an operator must obtain verifiable parental consent from the child's parent. Until April 2002, the FTC will use a sliding scale approach to parental consent in which the required method of consent will vary based on how the operator uses the child's personal information. That is, if the operator uses the information for internal purposes, a less rigorous method of consent is required. If the operator discloses the information to others, the situation presents greater dangers to children, and a more reliable method of consent is required. The sliding scale approach will sunset in April 2002 subject to a Commission review planned for October 2001.

Operators may use email to get parental consent for all internal uses of personal information, such as marketing back to a child based on his or her preferences or communicating promotional updates about site content, as long as they take additional steps to increase the likelihood that the parent has, in fact, provided the consent. For example, operators might seek confirmation from a parent in a follow up email, or confirm the parent's consent by letter or phone call.

When operators want to disclose a child's personal information to third parties or make it publicly available (for example, through a chat room or message board), the sliding scale requires them to use a more reliable method of consent, including:

• getting a signed form from the parent via postal mail or facsimile;
• accepting and verifying a credit card number;
• taking calls from parents, through a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel;
• email accompanied by digital signature;
• email accompanied by a PIN or password obtained through one of the verification methods above.

But in the case of a monitored chat room, if all individually identifiable information is stripped from postings before it is made public - and the information is deleted from the operator's records - an operator does not have to get prior parental consent.

An operator must give a parent the option to agree to the collection and use of the child's personal information without agreeing to the disclosure of the information to third parties. That is, a parent can grant consent to allow his/her child to participate in activities on the site without consenting to the disclosure of the child's information to third parties.

The regulations include several exceptions that allow operators to collect a child's email address without getting the parent's consent in advance. These exceptions cover many popular online activities for kids, including contests, online newsletters, homework help and electronic postcards. Prior parental consent is not required when:

• an operator collects a child's or parent's email address to provide notice and seek consent;
• an operator collects an email address to respond to a one-time request from a child and then deletes it;
• an operator collects an email address to respond more than once to a specific request - say, for a subscription to a newsletter. In this case, the operator must notify the parent that it is communicating regularly with the child and give the parent the opportunity to stop the communication before sending or delivering a second communication to a child;
• an operator collects a child's name or online contact information to protect the safety of a child who is participating on the site. In this case, the operator must notify the parent and give him or her the opportunity to prevent further use of the information;
• an operator collects a child's name or online contact information to protect the security or liability of the site or to respond to law enforcement, if necessary, and does not use it for any other purpose.

Come October 2001, the Commission will seek comment from interested parties to determine whether technology has progressed as expected and whether secure electronic methods are widely available and affordable. Subject to the Commission's review, the sliding scale will expire in April 2002. Until then, operators are encouraged to use the more reliable methods of consent for all uses of children's personal information.

New Notice to Consent
An operator is required to send a new notice and request for consent to parents if there are material changes in the collection, use or disclosure practices to which the parent had previously agreed. Take the case of the operator who got parental consent for a child to participate in contests that require the child to submit limited personal information, but who now wants to offer the child chat rooms. Or, consider the case of the operator who wants to disclose the child's information to third parties who are in materially different lines of business from those covered by the original consent - for example, marketers of diet pills rather than marketers of stuffed animals. In these cases, the Rule requires new notice and consent.

Timing
The Rule covers all personal information collected after April 21, 2000, regardless of any prior relationship an operator has had with a child. For example, if an operator collects the name and email address of a child before April 21, 2000, but plans to seek information about the child's street address after that date, the later collection would trigger the Rule's requirements. In addition, come April 21, 2000, if an operator continues to offer activities that involve the ongoing collection of information from children - like a chat room - or begins to offer such activities for the first time, notice and consent are required for all participating children regardless of whether the children had already registered at the site.

Access Verification
At a parent's request, operators must disclose the general kinds of personal information they collect from children (for example, name, address, telephone number, email address, hobbies), as well as the specific information collected from children who visit their sites. Operators must ensure they are dealing with the child's parent before they provide access to the child's specific information. They can use a variety of methods to verify the parent's identity, including:

• obtaining a signed form from the parent via postal mail or facsimile;
• accepting and verifying a credit card number;
• taking calls from parents on a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel;
• email accompanied by digital signature;
• email accompanied by a PIN or password obtained through one of the verification methods above.

Revoking and Deleting
At any time, a parent may revoke his/her consent, refuse to allow an operator to further use or collect their child's personal information and direct the operator to delete the information. In turn, the operator may terminate any service provided to the child, but only if the information at issue is reasonably necessary for the child's participation in that activity. For example, an operator may require children to provide their email addresses to participate in a chat room so the operator can contact a youngster if he is misbehaving in the chat room. If, after giving consent, a parent asks the operator to delete the child's information, the operator may refuse to allow the child to participate in the chat room in the future. If other activities on the Web site do not require the child's email address, the operator must allow the child access to those activities.

Safe Harbors
Industry groups or others can create self-regulatory programs to govern participants' compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule. These guidelines must include independent monitoring and disciplinary procedures and must be submitted to the Commission for approval. The Commission will publish the guidelines and seek public comment in considering whether to approve the guidelines. An operator's compliance with Commission-approved self-regulatory guidelines will serve as a "safe harbor" in any enforcement action for violations of the Rule.

Enforcement
Once the Rule becomes effective (April 2000), the Commission may bring enforcement actions and impose civil penalties for violations in the same manner as for other Rules under the FTC Act. In the meantime, the Commission also retains authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to examine information practices in use before the Rule's effective date for deception and unfairness. In interpreting Section 5 of the FTC Act, the Commission has determined that a representation, omission or practice is deceptive if it is likely to:

• mislead consumers; and
• affect consumers' behavior or decisions about the product or service.

Specifically, it is a deceptive practice under Section 5 to represent that a Web site is collecting personal identifying information from a child for one reason (say, to earn points to redeem a premium) when the information will be used for another reason that a parent would find material-and when the Web site does not disclose the other reason clearly or prominently.

In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is:

• substantial;
• not outweighed by other benefits; and
• not reasonably avoidable.

For example, it is likely to be an unfair practice in violation of Section 5 to collect personal identifying information from a child, such as email address, home address or phone number, and sell or otherwise disclose that information to a third party without giving parents adequate notice and a chance to control the collection and use of the information.