United States: Kiddie App Study Yields Federal Attention

Two senators ask the FTC to review the children's app landscape

Studies Past

Back in May, we covered an International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) study, humorously titled "Won't Somebody Think of the Children? Examining COPPA Compliance at Scale." The study should have alarmed parents and app developers alike.

The authors claimed that most of the apps logged in Google's "Designed for Families (DFF)" initiative potentially violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The study attributed this failure to third-party software development kits used to design the apps. COPPA-compliant options are available in these kits but, it turns out, are often simply not used or not applied during development. In the final analysis, the authors claim that nearly 20 percent of the apps gathered inappropriate personal information. What's more, the study maintains that other industry "safe harbor" programs – similar in structure to Google's DFF – don't fare much better.

The Takeaway

The federal government is not an institution that is renowned for efficiency or responsiveness, but in this case, the study received some serious attention: It provided the central impetus for a recent letter from U.S. senators Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to the FTC.

In their letter, the senators express their concerns about applications targeting children and how such apps can access geolocation data and transmit identifiers without first obtaining parental consent as required under COPPA. Additionally, the senators urged the FTC to investigate various app stores' practices of promoting certain apps as children's apps by placing them in the "kids" or "family" sections of their online stores. More generally, the senators' letter reviews the ICSI study's conclusions and demands that the FTC review the extent to which app developers, advertisers and app stores are complying with COPPA, including how each is ensuring the other is complying as well.

Developers, advertisers and even the stores that sell apps online should be prepared for the FTC's response – and if Markey and Blumenthal have a say, these companies should be prepared to ask each other some probing questions.

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