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- Column - Writing for the Big and the Little - |
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December 17/ 2000What you need to know about writing for the Web By Natalie Buske Thomas Read our review of Camp Convinction by Natalie Thomas Do you know that there is now legislation for any website that directly or indirectly markets to children? Do you know if your site qualifies as a site that markets to children? Remember, even if your site only indirectly markets to children the legislation applies to you. The legislation I am talking about is called COPPA: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. I learned about COPPA from Ivan Hoffman Attorney at Law, who posts regularly to John Kremer's marketing list for publishers. Hoffman maintains a website containing articles about legal issues that concern writers and publishers (www.ivanhoffman.com). About COPPA, Hoffman says, "COPPA presents significant legal issues for sites that fall within its scope. Failure to comply with the letter of COPPA and these regulations may result in significant fines as well as liability to the child and the child’s parents. As a result, sites that are directed to children, as defined in the act and regulations, should be very careful about establishing a valid compliance policy." This bit of news scared me when I first read it. Failure to comply? What am I supposed to do? And how do I know if my site falls under this legislation in the first place? I read up on the guidelines for what makes a site fall under COPPA regulation. For now, my site doesn't market to children, even though I do sell children's books at my site: I do not have content on my site that attracts children age 13 and under, and to the best of my knowledge, visitors to my site are all over age 13. However, should I expand my website to include content that attracts children to my site, or if I am aware that children visit my site, I will need to worry about COPPA. If you aren't sure if your site markets to children, consider the content of your site. Do you host games, e-cards, puzzles, Java applets, that may attract the juvenile Net crowd? Does the layout of your site include photos of children, newsletters for children, fun freebies and the like? Do you offer a newsletter that children might subscribe to? Any of these things puts your site under COPPA legislation. So what should you do? You need to do several things. But in a nutshell, you must clearly define on your site what your policy is regarding the collection of information from visitors to your site; clearly, and in plain sight. If you have only one area of your site that markets to children, you need to post your policy on that page(s). You'll need to post the policy again on every page where information about children might be collected. Even a simple e-mail address form collects information and falls under COPPA. I'm no lawyer, so I won't try to fully explain COPPA to you. I can direct you to Ivan Hoffman's article entitled The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, located at http://www.ivanhoffman.com/coppa.html. I also recommend that you seek legal advice if you feel confused about this legislation. |
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