On March 26, CCFC's Josh Golin testified in front of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and urged the Board to reconsider a plan to share confidential student data with for-profit companies. His testimony is below. CCFC is part of a growing coalition in for student's privacy in Massachusetts fighting that includes Citizens for Public Schools, the Mass PTA, and the ACLU of Massachusetts.

New Shared Learning Collaborative Will Hand Over Confidential Student Data to For-Profit Corporations

The FTC is taking action against a unit of the Warner Music Group Corp. for collecting personal information from young visitors of fan sites for Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and others. The web operator collected names, email addresses, street addresses and cellphone numbers of over 100,000 kids 12 and under in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Read more in this Associated Press article.

The Federal Trade Commission is moving toward updating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to protect children online. The new privacy rules would require that children's sites get permission from parents before tracking and targeting children on the web for the purpose of advertising. CCFC and other children's advocates welcome the changes, since COPPA, at nearly 15 years old, doesn't adequately protect children's privacy in the current technological landscape.