I teach coding and robotics to kids age 10 - 14. I'm constantly having to tell them to fill in the birthdate field accurately when signing up for things like Scratch or TinkerCAD because I know it triggers a different account creation path that complies with COPPA.<p>After half the class says "but my parents tell me to just lie about my age so I can use free stuff online" I end up having to have a whole conversation with the class about COPPA, and more to the point, the question "Is it OK to misrepresent yourself to someone else in order to get them to give you something they otherwise would not" and the slippery slope of little white lies, and when is it OK to lie. It's a good conversation but always eye opening to see what is taught at home. Of course many of these 10 - 12 year olds are also playing GTA V and other MA games with their parents' permission.
> “The F.T.C. has made enforcement of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act a high priority,” said Juliana Gruenwald, an agency spokeswoman.<p>> “These sophisticated tech companies are not policing themselves,” the New Mexico attorney general, Hector Balderas, said. “The children of this country ultimately pay the price.”<p>> “This is as much a black eye on the federal government as the tech space,” Mr. Balderas said. “I’m trying to get lawmakers at the federal level to wake up.”<p>This is like going after drug dealers for parking violations and calling a press conference to proudly brag about it. Game publishers are doing much worse stuff and you're making a big deal about going after them for tracking!?<p>To not even mention in passing loot boxes, really NYT? one of the most pervasive unethical rackets in modern tech targeting children, much worse than tracking because it causes real harm to individuals.<p>FTC: Feel free to exploit young underdeveloped brains to addict them to gambling for profit as long as you're not tracking them.
We need GDPR in USA.<p>Without this - nothing will change. Benefits of abusing children and stealing user's private information to resell to advertisers far outweigh the penalties.