Reposted with permission from Wired... -ac
Copyright 1994-2000 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.
COPPA Lets Steam out of Thomas
by Declan McCullagh
3:00 a.m. May. 13, 2000 PDT
A wildly popular children's television show has
disappointed millions of young fans by halting their
regular email bulletins.
A U.S. law makes it illegal for the Thomas the Tank
Engine show to continue sending email, the "Fat
Controller" character sadly informed his readers recently.
"I am sorry to say, dear friends, that I have had to
suspend all mailing list operations as a result of a new
on-line privacy act," Thomas's website says.
Call it the law of unintended consequences: The
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which
Congress said would help children, in some cases has
had precisely the opposite effect. The law took effect
last month.
In response to the new law, online matchmaker
Ecrush.com decided to say goodbye to some 2,000
under-12 subscribers, and NBCi angered its pre-teen
clientele in February when it canceled their email
accounts because of COPPA.
The law requires firms to obtain parental consent for
all the kids who use their site, which U.K. firm Britt
Allcroft, owner of the Thomas show, said would cost too much.
"We haven't got the manpower or the finances," said
Anthony Evans, head of marketing for Britt Allcroft.
Evans said 40 percent of the site's 500,000 monthly
visitors are from the U.S., where the show appears on
the Fox Family channel.
Judging from the disappointed emails he's received
from kids and parents, he said, most of them are
pretty upset.
"He's important to children worldwide. There's nothing
really harsh about his world," Evans said of the show's
flagship character.
"Congress rushed into this without considering the
impact of indulging in privacy technophobia on
consumers and small businesses," says Solveig
Singleton, a lawyer specializing in privacy issues at the
free-market Cato Institute. "This will happen more and
more as the Federal Trade Commission gets on the
privacy bandwagon and decides to treat legitimate
businesses as stalkers."
A major motion picture, called Thomas and the Magic
Railroad and based on the TV show, will be out in U.S.
theaters on July 26. Starring Alec Baldwin and Peter
Fonda, the film mixes live action and model animation
and features the story of a girl who takes the wrong
train and travels to a toy world where she meets
Thomas the steam engine.
Supporters of COPPA say most children's websites
should be able to comply with the law.
"COPPA helps children by protecting their personal
privacy. Some websites and other online operations will
have to make some alterations in their daily conduct,"
says Andrew Chen, an analyst at the Electronic Privacy
Information Center.
"I'm fully confident that websites will be able to make
the changes required by COPPA, but also that personal
information belonging to children deserves that extra effort."
Don Boudreaux, president of the Foundation for
Economic Education, says Congress can't anticipate all
side effects of such laws.
"No matter how careful they are in crafting legislation,
that legislation will cut in directions it wasn't intended
to cut. It will fail to solve problems it was intended to
solve," said Boudreaux, an economist and attorney
who describes his 3-year-old son as a "true Thomas fan."
"It's legislation aimed at governing 270 million
people. How in the world can a few hundred people in
Washington craft legislation that takes account of all
the nuances and subtleties and ingenuity and
creativity of 270 million people?" Boudreaux said.
Sir Topham Hatt, the name of the Fat Controller
character, described the sad situation to his fans in a
last email earlier this month. "I have some very
disappointing news for you. This is for one very simple
reason. On Friday 21, a new law, COPPA, will come into
effect, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission
... .
"This sadly has major implications for any
communication with children under 13, regardless of
their country of residence. In short, I am unable to
communicate with you all. I am truly sorry. There is no
legal way round this legislation."
The website says, however, that a "new service" will
take its place on August 1.
Copyright 1994-2000 Wired Digital Inc. All rights reserved.
***********************************
Andy Carvin
Senior Associate
Benton Foundation
andy@benton.org
http://edweb.gsn.org/andy
http://www.DigitalDivideNetwork.org
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