Child Protection Laws

• Laws in the United States and Canada prohibit the collection of personal information from children under 13 without the written permission of a parent or guardian. However, spyware has no good way of knowing if the person using the computer is a child or an adult. Since most spyware does not make any provisions for users whom they are not legally permitted to collect information from, the potential problems with regard to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. 6501 et seq. ("COPPA") are huge.