Hunton Retail Law Resource

The FTC announced the issuance of an updated children’s privacy rule (COPPA), more than five years after initiating a rule review. The Commission vote on the Rule was 5-0, with various Commissioners filing separate statements. The Final Rule, which will be published in the Federal Register shortly, contains several significant changes, but also stops short of the version proposed by the FTC in January of 2024. The Rule will go into effect 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register; most covered entities will have one year after publication to comply.

On Friday, August 2, 2024, the United States sued ByteDance, TikTok, and its affiliates for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (“COPPA”) and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“COPPA Rule”). In its complaint, the Department of Justice alleges TikTok collected, stored, and processed vast amounts of data from millions of child users of its popular social media app.