Sites Drop Kids to Comply With COPPA
Driving at 16, drinking at 21, web surfing at 13? Compliance with a new U.S. law intended to protect kids' privacy is rippling across the Web, limiting access to services that users of all ages had probably taken for granted.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) went into effect Friday, and already America Online has deleted the online profiles of anyone who is self-identified as being under the age of 13. Other popular youth sites such as Alloy have banned preteens from chat rooms, while the so-called "i-generation" site Snowball.com has cut off free e-mail and home page services.
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