FILE - A sign stands outside the Federal Trade Commission building, Jan. 28, 2015, in Washington. On Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023, the FTC said it issued warnings to two food and beverage industry groups, as well as a dozen online influencers and dietitians for failing to adequately disclose paid social media posts that promoted a sweetener and sugary products. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
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FTC looks to expand online privacy protections for kids
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) this week proposed changes to current online protections for children that would further restrict the ability of websites to use and disclose their personal information.
Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), websites and online services are already required to provide notice to and obtain consent from parents to collect, use or disclose information from children younger than 13 years, with limits on what data they can collect and how long they can store it.
The proposed changes would require additional parental consent to allow a child’s information to be disclosed to third-party advertisers and would reinforce existing prohibitions on conditioning participation on the collection of personal data.
“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 a statement.
It would also bar websites from using contact information and identifiers to send push notifications to children to encourage them to stay online, mandate stronger data security requirements for sites that collect a child’s data and limit data retention to only “as long as necessary to fulfill the specific purpose for which it was collected.”
“The proposed changes to COPPA are much-needed, especially in an era where online tools are essential for navigating daily life—and where firms are deploying increasingly sophisticated digital tools to surveil children,” Khan said.
Several Pulitzer Prize winning authors have joined a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, the creator of the popular ChatGPT tool, alleging the tech companies used their copyrighted work to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without permission. The lawsuit, which was originally filed by author Julian Sancton in late November, now features Kai Bird, Taylor Branch, Stacy Schiff and eight other nonfiction …
Parler, the social media platform popular among conservatives that was shut down earlier this year, is planning a comeback in 2024. The company was acquired Friday by Elise Rhodes-Pierotti, its former chief marketing officer, and Ryan Rhodes. The pair, who will be joined by anti-human trafficking activist Jaco Booyens as chief strategy officer, plan to relaunch the platform in the first quarter of next year. “The relaunch of …
A dataset used to train popular artificial intelligence (AI) image generation tools was found to contain more than 1,000 exploitative photos of children, according to a report from the Stanford Internet Observatory. The report found that the LAION-5B dataset — created by the Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network (LAION) nonprofit — contained at least 1,008 images of child sexual abuse material. The images were evaluated …
News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics:
Apple halts online sales of some Apple Watches
Apple has officially halted online sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2, after losing a patent dispute before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), The Verge reported.
Beeper ends push to bring iMessage to Androids
Beeper is ending its monthlong push to bring iMessage to Androids with the Beeper Mini app, after issuing yet another workaround in response to Apple’s repeated efforts to block the service, TechCrunch reported.
In Other News
Branch out with other reads on The Hill:
A Dutch court has sentenced a man convicted in a notorious Canadian cyberbullying case to 6 years
AMSTERDAM (AP) — A Dutch man, who was convicted in British Columbia of charges including extortion and harassment related to a Canadian teenager who took her own life after he blackmailed her online, had his sentence cut Thursday by an Amsterdam court from 13 years to six. Aydin Coban wasn’t …
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) mocked former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway’s criticism of Democrats’ focus on Jan. 6, following the Colorado … Read more
Special counsel Jack Smith again urged the Supreme Court to weigh former President Trump’s efforts to toss his election interference prosecution … Read more
