BBB National Programs

Collecting consent is a far more nuanced process than just getting someone to opt in. It also matters how you ask for it.

There’s been talk about raising the age of consent from 13 to 16 under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Dona Fraser, SVP of privacy initiatives at BBB National Programs, weighs in.

Regulators have made it clear that they have their eye on how data flows between first parties and their partners – and that first parties are responsible for what happens when the data they collect is shared with others.

Mary Engle is EVP of policy at BBB National Programs, a nonprofit organization that’s helping keep self-regulation of the ad industry alive. She’s also spent more than three decades with the FTC. In this episode, Engle gets into the weeds on “commercial surveillance,” the nitty-gritty of ad disclosures, the FTC’s case against Kochava and more.

Some business practices on the internet may not be against the law, but they undermine or manipulate consumer choice. Legal advocates have coined a new name for this practice: dark patterns. And dark patterns are next up on the enforcement docket both for the Federal Trade Commission and state-level data privacy laws.

Data privacy is a hot topic, but children’s privacy is often kept on the backburner. Compliance with child data protection laws is hard to get right because it involves determining the exact age of your audience – and playing by different rules accordingly. Staying on the right side of COPPA isn’t easy.