Heavy Penalty for Mrs. Fields Cookies and Hershey Foods for COPPA Violation

Mrs. Fields Cookies and the Hershey Food Corporation have settled with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for the alleged violation of a Rule enacted by the FTC pursuant to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (Rule). This Rule prohibits operators of commercial websites from collecting personal information from children under 13 without having first obtained the verifiable consent of a parent or guardian first. Mrs. Fields Cookies operates several websites with portions geared towards children 12 or under. These sites provide birthday greetings and coupons for free food. The company is alleged to have obtained personal information, such as full names, home addresses, email addresses, and birth dates from over 84,000 children without the consent of a parent or guardian. The company will pay civil penalties of $100,000.00. The Hershey Food Corporation operates many websites that contain parental consent mechanisms, however, these mechanisms did not meet the standards set out by the FTC Rule. The Hershey Food websites required parents or guardians to fill out an online form. The FTC alleged that that the websites took no steps to ensure that the parent or guardian actually filled out the form and further alleged that if the parent or guardian did not fill out the form, the websites would still collect the personal information. The company will pay civil penalties of $85,000.00. For details, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2B1142C3 For a copy of the Rule, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G102322C3