The obscure deal that defined America’s broken privacy protection
The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act – New Rules for the Privacy Protection of Online Children from Google, Meta, and other Big Tech Dominance
The ProtectingKids on Social Media Act was introduced earlier this year and some of the proposed changes overlap with it. Regulatory action such as agency rulemaking is more predictable when the Congress is not in agreement. The new regulations will only be finalized after feedback from the public — the FTC will be collecting public comment on the proposal for 60 days after posting notice in the Federal Register.
“Kids must be able to play and learn online without being endlessly tracked by companies looking to hoard and monetize their personal data,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the official announcement. Khan said the changes would stop companies from outsourcing responsibilities to parents for managing children’s data.
Companies would also have to justify why they want to keep persistent identifiers on hand and would be forbidden from using them in push notifications to encourage kids to return to their apps when they aren’t actively using them.
The FTC proposed changes to the regulations it currently enforces under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, in order to further limit the collection and use of children’s data by tech companies.
More than 175,000 public comments were received by the agency when it began its latest review of its regulations under COPPA. In a single year, the regulator levied hundreds of millions of dollars in combined fines to YouTube and TikTok for improper handling of user data from children.
Before the internet giant created its social network Google+, it had a less known social network calledGoogle Buzz. Buzz was launched less than two years ago. But its mishandling of people’s personal data motivated the first in a series of legal settlements that, though imperfect, are to this day the closest the US has come to establishing extensive rules for protecting privacy online.
Congress does not look likely to act soon, leaving the privacy of hundreds of millions of people who entrust personal data to Google and Meta backstopped by the two consent decrees, static barriers of last resort serving into an ever-dynamic era of big tech dominance they were never designed to contain. The FTC is undertaking an ambitious effort to modernize its deal with Meta, but appeals by the company could drag the process out for years and kill the prospect of future decrees.
