The demographic of a virtual world that offers real-time chat between users will determine the user-generated content (UGC) that is allowed. For communities targeted at kids, one way to prevent inappropriate UGC from reaching the younger members of the community is to implement a gated chat system. With gated chat there are typically 3 options:
One of her aliases is CupcakePuppy44. That’s parent, author, and former teacher Sharon Duke Estroff’s Instagram handle. She created a joint account with her 10-year-old after some stonewalling and some external investigation (with kids, fellow parents, and psychologists), not to mention a certain amount of hounding by her daughter, who – not unlike other 4th- and 5th-graders – indicated she was “the only poor, deprived soul in a school full of Ugg-wearing, iPhone-toting, whatevering children.”
Sharon – who wrote a wonderful series of guest posts in NetFamilyNews as Undercover Mom in Club Penguin, Stardoll.com, Poptropica, and BarbieGirls.com in 2009 – is as thoughtful as ever about kids in mobile apps. Don’t miss her thorough investigation into Instagram for Scholastic Parent & Child magazine, with three main points called “lessons” that a lot of parents suspect but would probably like to hear more on (she also offers four brief safety “rules” for underage Instagram use which make a lot of sense). What I love about Sharon’s approach is the balance that parents deserve: She provides both the upsides and the downsides, and she’s not out to scare anybody. That’s real child and parent advocacy.
Inversoft has provided a shortened version of the ‘Business and Parents and Small Entity Compliance Guide’.
A member of the industry or person must submit 'self-regulatory' guidelines to the FTC for approval. The Commission is required to publish the safe harbor application in the Federal Register (for public comment), and then writes a determination on the application within 180 days of filing.
COPPA safe harbor applications must contain:
Inversoft has provided a shortened version of the ‘Business and Parents and Small Entity Compliance Guide’.
1. If I operate a social networking service and a parent revokes her consent to my maintaining personal information collected from the child, can I deny that child access to my service?
Yes.
2. I know that the Rule says I cannot condition a child’s participation in a game or prize offering on the child’s disclosing more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in those activities. Does this limitation apply to other online activities?
Yes. The Rule includes games, prize offerings and "another activity". Minimize and examine carefully how you collect information with every activity so it is "reasonably" necessary.
For more information on COPPA FAQs and COPPA Schools click here.
Continue readingInversoft has provided a shortened version of the ‘Business and Parents and Small Entity Compliance Guide’.
You need to determine what data practices the third parties have in place for maintaining the confidentiality of that data, and what security is in place to prevent unwanted exposure or access to personal information.
How your users data is being used by the third party' or service' needs to be thoroughly defined and addressed by contractual agreement.
It is important to periodically monitor/checkup on the third party to confirm they are maintaining confidentiality and security of your users personal information.
It must comply with COPPA by:
For more information on COPPA FAQs click here.
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