In the largest settlement ever for a COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) case, Sony BMG agreed Thursday to pay $1 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The suit states that Sony improperly collected, maintained and disclosed personal information from thousands of children under the age of 13, without their parents' consent.
On 196 fan sites for artists such as Good Charlotte, Kelly Clarkson, Chris Brown, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Sony Music knowingly collected personal information from at least 30,000 underage children without first obtaining their parents' consent which is in direct violation of COPPA.
The sites also did not disclose that it would keep such information, and it did not disclose how it would use it, the FTC said. Sony is now being forced to purge this data from their servers and link to the FTC online information awareness program for five years.
Way to force a major online website (Worldwide Alexa Ranking 824) to a non-reciprocal link back to your site for half a decade! I wish I could do that! The payment, if I'm doing my math correctly, works out to about $33 a child. So, the FTC is really getting the better end of the deal if you ask me.
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