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NR2001

Guest

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

COPPA says that if a website collects information about a person under 13 years old, they have to get verifiable parental consent, in the name of protecting children's privacy protection. Some people want all internet websites to have to verify that you are over 13 before you continue to the website.

This is nice and all, except that websites don't feel like investing time and money into programming computer systems to handle parental consent and take the risk of legal fines. Instead, it is much more economical to say this in their TOS:
"THIS WEBSITE IS NOT FOR THE USE OF ANY INDIVIDUAL UNDER 13 YEARS OF AGE".

This includes (but not limited to!):
Facebook
Twitter
Yahoo!
Steam
Armorgames, Kongerate
Google
>Gmail
>YouTube
And many other websites on the internet.

But you may know that over 7.5 million kids are on Facebook anyway.

How did they get on Facebook? Simple. Lies.
How many here read TOS of websites before agreeing? Almost none.

Then how can you expect a person under 13 to do so? They don't. Parents willingly let children lie about their age on websites to get registered.

All that COPPA does is force children under 13 to lie about their age so they can get onto websites that they feel like going onto. COPPA doesn't protect privacy because when a child under 13 registers, they must lie about their age, otherwise they won't be able to join, thus the website collects the information without parental consent, making COPPA worthless.

In my opinion, COPPA is unconstitutional because a child can't signup for the 2 most popular social networking and most popular video streaming website because of some stupid lawmaker in the White House who thinks that it's his/her responsibility to protect the privacy of children, when it really should be the parent's. The inability of being able to sign up is restricting the child's freedom of speech (first amendment).

What do you think?

I think COPPA is a waste of time, and should be done away with except for advertisers (we don't want Google stalking little 5 year-olds for the sole purpose of profit, right?)
Or make a new system that alerts a predetermined email address that tells the recipient that a person under the age of 13 registered on so-and-so website dot com, do you accept or not, do you auto-accept, do you auto-deny, do you care?

I want to hear your opinion. Yes, I know the protection of under 13's privacy is important, but COPPA doesn't do good enough a job, and the consequence of lies and rule-breaking are too much.

I'm a little surprised that the forum and the game don't have any disclaimers.

Please post.

Alexthementalone

Banned

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

The registration makes it so easy for kids to register because they make more money.

N1KF

Wiki Mod

From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 11,158

Website

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

I am against COPPA. Us children under 13, including me and KRAZYMAN50, should have the rights to go on the internet. The age is not what matters, the maturity is what matters. Mature kids don't have legal rights to go sign up sometimes, but immature teenagers DO have the rights to do so.

Last edited by N1KF (Jun 22 2013 4:25:59 pm)

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

I am against COPPA. Us children under 13, including me and KRAZYMAN50, should have the rights to go on the internet. The age is not what matters, the maturity is what matters. Mature kids don't have legal rights to go sign up sometimes, but immature teenagers DO have the rights to do so.

Yes you very well should have the right to go onto the internet. COPPA is restricting of signing up for a website (just tried with Facebook, fake birthday = error), and in turn encourages lying.

Echo!

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Ummm.. pfft. Errrr. I can't actually answer the legitimately without being throwned upon, but kids should be allowed to use the web in my honest personal opinion.

What are they even protecting them from?

It's a waste of time, they can't enforce something so big. it's like enforcing 20 year olds only to wear just blue jeans or something. They will never know the true identity.
-

Out of curiosity and curiosity only, how old are you NR2001?

Last edited by Echo! (Jun 22 2013 4:43:36 pm)

Fdoou

Banned

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

lol i don't care i'm over 13

also anyone trying to control the internet except maybe China is really bad at it

Tachyonic

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

What are they even protecting them from?

Phishing.
Cyber-bullying.
4chan.

The list could go on...

hummerz5

Member

From: wait I'm not a secret mod huh

Joined: 2015-08-10

Posts: 5,854

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

It's true that it doesn't stop the problem entirely, because there is no way to PROVE the age of a user with what's installed right now. You'd need to implement some idiotic system that'd be a waste of money.

however, I don't believe freedom of speech protects your right to social networking.
As you say "in my opinion":
In my opinion, freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean you can say it wherever you want. Of course, I'm glad to have a third party contribute their interpretation of the first amendment.

Also... think of this.
If it wasn't for some sort of law (regardless if easily circumvented) that protected younger people from using social networking, we'd have a problem. The COPPA has a reason... or it wouldn't have been established, and it wouldn't be a topic right now. I think that there are quite a few children online who don't know about protecting their privacy... and if we didn't have this, we'd have some form of a problem to deal with.

Last edited by hummerz5 (Jun 22 2013 4:55:13 pm)

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thanks HG, HG, HG, HG! anatoly, zumza! zoey!

N1KF

Wiki Mod

From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 11,158

Website

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

What are they even protecting them from?

Phishing.
Cyber-bullying.
4chan.

The list could go on...

I think the people "phishing," cyber-bullying, and 4channers should be restricted more than the children. Let's say there is a bully, and the victim, and the bully attacks the victim. It's not the victim who should be blamed because she didn't do good enough to avoid the attack, it's the bully who should because he was the one responsible for the attack.

People who are "bad" for children should not be allowed to be around them in the first place.

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

@Echo! Somewhere between -999999 and 999999 (Hint: that means private information)

I do think that the parent should be concerned with privacy, not the government.

IMO It doesn't matter what they're trying to protect little 5 year olds from if their implementation doesn't work anyway.

Last edited by NR2001 (Jun 22 2013 4:58:22 pm)

Echo!

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

What are they even protecting them from?

Phishing.
Cyber-bullying.
4chan.

The list could go on...

Then we should all be banned from the internet then!! Dude. That can happen to anyone, not just children. They just trying to be "heros" and don't come at me saying kids are more vulnerable.

=======

People who are "bad" for children should not be allowed to be around them in the first place.

Thanks. You insulting child. That's exactly what my pyhscarsit said about me and my son, and I freak out, and now I'm even more angrier.

Last edited by Echo! (Jun 22 2013 5:08:09 pm)

hummerz5

Member

From: wait I'm not a secret mod huh

Joined: 2015-08-10

Posts: 5,854

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

I do think that the parent should be concerned with privacy, not the government.
IMO It doesn't matter what they're trying to protect little 5 year olds from if their implementation doesn't work anyway.

COPPA... well.

Hopefully all this government business about COPPA (and the fact that every site a parent visits will likely say something about age limits) will remind parents that the internet isn't exactly a perfect place. (See above list (lol)) And so, the parent learns that it's recommended not to have their children on websites.

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thanks HG, HG, HG, HG! anatoly, zumza! zoey!

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

...the parent learns that it's recommended not to have their children on websites.

The problem is that parents don't understand that the age described is not a recommendation, but a requirement.

This is also some food for thought.

So is this.

Last edited by NR2001 (Jun 22 2013 5:11:25 pm)

XxAtillaxX

Member

Joined: 2015-11-28

Posts: 4,202

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

>yfw you're underage and still viewing adult content.

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*u stinky*

Tachyonic

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

What are they even protecting them from?

Phishing.
Cyber-bullying.
4chan.

The list could go on...

Then we should all be banned from the internet then!! Dude. That can happen to anyone, not just children. They just trying to be "heros" and don't come at me saying kids are more vulnerable.

Definition

joke  
j?k

Noun
A thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline.

Verb
Make jokes; talk humorously or flippantly.

Synonyms
noun.         jest - fun - jape - gag - trick - pleasantry - lark
verb.         jest - jape - banter - lark - kid - josh

Last edited by Tachyonic (Jun 22 2013 5:20:20 pm)

Krazyman50

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

COPPA got me banned from Kong a year or two ago, I had so much on my account, then BOOM, underage ban. It's plain unfair, as maturity cannot simply be defined by the date of your birth. Children should not be on the Internet anyway if the parents are smart enough to keep them from it, or they could have a firewall on the computer. We just have to deal with COPPA for now.
http://coppa.org/

Last edited by Krazyman50 (Jun 22 2013 5:27:51 pm)

Echo!

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Phishing.
Cyber-bullying.
4chan.

The list could go on...

Then we should all be banned from the internet then!! Dude. That can happen to anyone, not just children. They just trying to be "heros" and don't come at me saying kids are more vulnerable.

Definition

joke  
j?k

Noun
A thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, esp. a story with a funny punchline.

Verb
Make jokes; talk humorously or flippantly.

Synonyms
noun.         jest - fun - jape - gag - trick - pleasantry - lark
verb.         jest - jape - banter - lark - kid - josh

Don't f dictionary me, when you did not even state it was a joke. You're just mad, because when I dictionary'd you last, but I had a completely legitimately reason too, you was wrong.   But you didn't even state it was a joke, so that's freaking stupid. Secondly you said it seriously. And it was not funny. So I couldn't detect it was a joke, because I'm not jesus.

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

I wonder if the people governing this law have children that are on the internet with false dates of birth, lol.

I wonder if Chris can be held liable for collecting info about people on the forum and the game who are under 13, even though he didn't directly do so, but.... crap, if the FTC is looking at this, we just killed ourselves, lol.

Tachyonic

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

but.... crap, if the FTC is looking at this, we just killed ourselves, lol.

guverment ppl, is totes nr2001 fault lol

0176

Member

From: Brazil

Joined: 2021-09-05

Posts: 3,174

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

No matter how hard "they" try, it's not going to work. A savvy enough child can bypass any "security filters" in sites, and if they don't know how to they could easily Google a way around it.

Last edited by 0176 (Jun 22 2013 6:18:46 pm)

N1KF

Wiki Mod

From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ From: ဪဪဪဪဪ

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 11,158

Website

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

People who are "bad" for children should not be allowed to be around them in the first place.

Thanks. You insulting child. That's exactly what my pyhscarsit said about me and my son, and I freak out, and now I'm even more angrier.

Wow, I didn't really mean to offend you. I would reply, but I think I'm just confusing myself too much to understanding what all the talk about giant purple crickets is about.

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

but.... crap, if the FTC is looking at this, we just killed ourselves, lol.

guverment ppl, is totes nr2001 fault lol

If tomorrow EE is dead along with the forum, you'll know why, lol!

Cyral

Member

From: United States

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 2,269

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Running my own website targeted to people 10+ (mostly teens) forces me to add a COPPA notice. And I really don't like it. But its not hard to lie on the internet and no one is really going to do anything to verify it.

Theres no need for COPPA. Kids are way more advance than even adults on tech these days. Some COPPA notice won't bother them. Sometimes its even in the terms of use, which who even reads anyways? Shouldn't this site have one? YEP. But it doesen't

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Player Since 2011. I used to make bots and stuff.

NR2001

Guest

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Running my own website targeted to people 10+ (mostly teens) forces me to add a COPPA notice. And I really don't like it. But its not hard to lie on the internet and no one is really going to do anything to verify it.

There's no need for COPPA. Kids are way more advance than even adults on tech these days. Some COPPA notice won't bother them. Sometimes its even in the terms of use, which who even reads anyways? Shouldn't this site have one? YEP. But it doesn't

See, you prove my point. Kids under 13 want to register anyway, so they do so. Their parents don't give consent, and you have 0 legal risk because you say that you are not permitted to register if you're under 13. COPPA protects 0 kids on your website.

Would I bother make a consent system? Nope. Too hard, and pointless seeing that you don't have to verify a persons age upon registration.

Zoey2070

Moderation Team

From: Shakuras

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 5,511

Re: Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Wow, let's not have gun control laws because some people don't adhere to them anyway.
There's laws for a reason. Just because it can easily be bypassed doesn't mean it shouldn't exist at all. It's still a deterrent for some people and you're still breaking the law by being on a site and being under 13.
It actually IS to protect children: you know, protect their privacy. Because kids on occasion are dumb, let's face it.
Just because age does not equal maturity does not mean you should be allowed on a site. Does this mean that someone who is eighteen shouldn't be allowed on a site because he's an idiot? I'd argue yes, but that's stupid. Eighteen year olds have rights: kids don't. Theoretically, a parent would be watching their children's internet usage, see the COPPA notice, and tell them they're not allowed to be on it.

However, this is not the case. The problem does not lie with the law, it lies with the monitoring of children's internet usage or lack thereof.

edit lol this is the last post i made before becoming a mod

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