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Friday
- May 12, 2000
Parents Unclear on COPPA
Law
According to the NY Times:
"It has been more than
three weeks since the federal Child Online Privacy Protection
Act went into effect, yet many parents are still in the
dark about the legislation.
The law, which is the first
of its kind online, is intended to keep commercial Web
sites and marketers from collecting identifiable data from
children under 13 without a parent's approval. Under COPPA,
any site that collects e-mail addresses, names or birth
dates must request a signed permission slip or a credit
card number from parents or face fines from the Federal
Trade Commission.
An informal survey of parents
on three online parenting chat areas -- TalkCity.com, iVillage.com
and Yahoo.com -- found only a handful of parents had even
heard about the legislation.
"Industry officials say
that parents may not be aware of the new law since most
medium- to large-sized Web sites have been in compliance
with COPPA since Oct. 20, when its rules were announced
by the FTC...Of those parents who had heard of COPPA, some
said they resented what they felt was a governmental intrusion
into their lives..."
Click
here for the full story (may require free registration)
Click
here to see if you are compliant with COPPA.
Forbes Magazine: "When
the Music Stops"
According to Forbes Magazine:
"Within days, even hours,
of Nasdaq's tumble, venture firms went on the defensive,
slashing company valuations, freezing contracts with young
private companies and backing out of deals altogether.
They're forcing companies to rein in costs, look for merger
candidates and scrap plans to go public.
The private-equity market usually
lags the public markets by several months. Not this time. "It's
happening far more quickly and with more ferocity than
anyone could have guessed," says James Breyer, the
managing partner at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Accel Partners.
Late-stage investors in companies Accel has backed are
devaluing some of those firms by 25%, matching the recent
Nasdaq decline.
Inevitably, the torrent of me-too
dot-coms will slow. The bear's sudden appearance signals
a return to yesteryear, when VCs waited years for a payoff,
expected fewer blockbusters and reaped more modest returns.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Trident Capital put the word out
to its companies to slash costs and hoard 12 months of
cash, warning them they might have to wait much longer
to go public..."
Click
here for the full story.
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