The U.S. regulatory authorities made the announcement on Thursday declaring that Playdom, online children game company recently acquired by Walt Disney, has agreed to pay a fine of $3 million in order to settle the charges proved against the online game star. The major allegation in the lawsuit accused Playdom of illegally gathering information regarding their underage users without their or their parents consent. The officials informed that Playdom actually went against the law, when it asked the underage players to fill up information with the proper approval of their parents or guardians. Furthermore FTC, Federal Trade Commission, stated that this information was than even shared publically in the online game community.
Image via WikipediaThe chairman of FTC, Jon Leibowitz, was addressing the media in a press conference when he stated that "Let's be clear: Whether you are a virtual world, a social network, or any other interactive site that appeals to kids, you owe it to parents and their children to provide proper notice and get proper consent." He went on elaborating that "It's the law, it's the right thing to do, and, as today's settlement demonstrates, violating COPPA will not come cheap."
Playdom is an online gaming company, acquired last year by Walt-Disney with $763 million, and is now considered one of the top three social game companies having even more than 40 million monthly players. This fine charge for settling the offence is being referred as one of the highest paid money ever to resolve any charges regarding the violating of Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In the settlement, Playdom has also officially agreed to abide by all other laws stated in the COPPA, especially the ones implied on the data collection of underage players.
This large sum of fine money was backed up with the allegations of FTC, which named some of the company’s games which were behind such illegal activity and were constantly breaking the law; the games games mentioned in the lawsuit were Pony Stars and My Diva Doll. These games, and other such games, were found to be collecting personal information from the underage players in order to sign up for playing online, which information they later allowed being shared in detail in their profiles or forums. All the underage young players, which are not yet 13 years old, were easily allowed to post not only their names and email addresses but also their locations and further information, as stated in the allegations of the FTC.
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