Website or Online Service Directed to Children

Under COPPA, a website or online service, or portion thereof, targeted at children under 13, triggering strict requirements for parental consent before collecting personal information. The FTC considers multiple factors when determining if a service is 'directed to children': subject matter, visual content, use of animated characters or child-oriented activities, music or other audio content, age of models, presence of child celebrities or celebrities popular with children, language or other characteristics of the site, advertising on the site, competent and reliable empirical evidence about audience composition, and evidence of the intended audience. A site is 'directed to children' if it targets children as its primary audience, or if it targets children as a substantial portion of its audience (even if not primary). Mixed-audience sites must comply with COPPA for child-directed sections. Organizations should: carefully assess whether their services are child-directed, conduct audience analysis if uncertain, implement age-gating for general-audience sites, obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting children's information, provide parents control over children's data, and maintain compliance documentation. Getting this assessment wrong creates significant regulatory exposure.