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New York Attorney General reaches largest ever COPPA settlement to resolve violations of children’s privacy

State Issues COPPA Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security State Attorney General Settlement Enforcement

State Issues

On December 4, the New York Attorney General announced the largest Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) settlement in U.S. history—totaling approximately $6 million —to resolve allegations with a subsidiary of a telecommunications company that allegedly conducted billions of auctions for ad space on hundreds of websites it knew were directed to children under the age of 13. According to the Attorney General’s office, the subsidiary collected and disclosed personal data on children through auctions for ad space, allowing advertisers to track and serve targeted ads to children without parental consent. Under COPPA, operators of websites and other online services are prohibited from collecting or sharing the information of children under the age of 13 unless they give notice and have express parental consent. Among other things, the subsidiary also allegedly placed ads on other exchanges that possessed the capability to auction ad space on child-directed websites, but that when it won ad space on COPPA-covered websites, the subsidiary treated the space as it would any other and collected user information to serve targeted ads.

Under the terms of the settlement, the subsidiary must (i) create a comprehensive COPPA compliance program, which requires annual COPPA training for staff, regular compliance monitoring, and the retention of service providers that can comply with COPPA, as well as a third party who will assess the privacy controls; (ii) enable website operators that sell ad inventory to indicate what portion of a website is subject to COPPA; and (iii) destroy the personal data it collected on children.