Several industry trade groups have objected to aspects of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) current proposed revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rule. Among these trade groups is the Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) whose comments argued that the FTC should make several revisions. Specifically, the PMA’s comments included the following suggestions:

• Revise definitions of “operators” and “website or online service directed to children;”
• Permit websites that are directed to multiple age groups to age screen and only apply COPPA protections to those individuals who identify themselves as under 13 instead of automatically requiring mixed audience websites with children as an “over-represented group” to comply;
• Modify its proposal to treat “personal identifiers” as personal information and edit its “support for internal operations” exception to clarify that personal identifiers used for internal activities are not covered as personal information;
• Expand the activities that will be considered “support for internal operations;”and
• Retain the email plus parental verification method where the personal information is collected for internal purposes only.

Please see our previous article detailing the proposed revisions to the rule here. All comments to the rule were due September 24, 2012, and the online community is awaiting the release of the final revised rules.

Arent Fox is continuing to monitor developments in this area. Please contact the listed attorneys with questions.