The Center for Digital Democracy is staffing
up as it prepares to keep tabs on compliance with the Federal Trade
Commisison's updated enforcement policy of the Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act.
Hudson Kingston,
formerly with the Center for Food Safety and the White House Council on
Environmental Quality, has joined CDD as legal director. "Hudson's strong commitment
to consumer protection and public health will help CDD represent the interests
of young people in the digital era," said CDD executive director Jeff Chester,
who has been a leading voice for protecting privacy online.
The FTC's new policy
went into effect July 1. It includes bringing
geolocation, cookies (plug-ins), online user names, and photos, videos, and
audio of kids into the definition of personal information that can't be
collected without parental permission, and brings behavioral targeting
explicitly within the rule. It also makes websites responsible for third-party
collections so long as they have actual knowledge that info is being collectedfrom kids,
though it has signaled it is giving Web sites more guidance on what that
"actual knowledge" standard is.
"Now that the
revised COPPA rules are in force, CDD intends to closely monitor the children's
online marketplace to help promote compliance," said Chester.
