New advertising rules may have lifted a major barrier to Facebook’s long-held desire of signing up children under 13 years of age. The Federal Trade Communication revised the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to exclude parental consent from ads that are based on behavior, rather than personal information. So-called “contextual advertisements” would permit Facebook to monetize children’s activity without violating rules about collecting their private information. Alan Simpson, Vice President of children’s online advocacy network, Common Sense media, tells us that though they agree with some of the rule changes, with regard to contextual ads, “Common Sense doesn’t like this part, and the industry lobbyists probably do.” The brunt of the FTC’s COPPA update was designed to strengthen children’s privacy.
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