In April 2000, the new federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) created comprehensive new rules that govern the online collection and management of children's personal information. If you operate a website that collects any personal information, you need to review the requirements of COPPA to ensure that your business is in compliance with the law. COPPA rules spell out what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent, and what responsibilities your business has to protect children's privacy and safety online. For a comprehensive review of business responsibilities, please review the FTC's guidelines.

Broadly speaking, COPPA divides the world into two types of sites: those that are targeted towards a child audience and those targeted towards adults or general audiences.

If your site targets children (has cartoons, toy advertisers, etc.) the law has very strict rules regarding the collection of personal information from children under 13, and providing access for parents. The FTC considers full name, home address, email address, telephone number and any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child as personal information, as well as hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms when that information is tied to individually identifiable information. You have to get verified parental consent to order to collect any of this type of information.

If you operate a general audience Web site, you still have to comply with COPPA. In this case, you cannot knowingly collect information from individuals under the age of 13. Problems could arise if your site collects age information about visitors and does not immediately discard the data on individuals who are under 13 years old.

To find out more, please read the Federal Trade Commission's COPPA Compliance Guide