Does Google Buzz Violate COPPA?

Google Buzz logoDanielle Citron over at Concurring Opinions invited me to write a guest post expanding on a comment I wrote yesterday on her post on the Google Buzz story. I’m reposting it here with more of the links enabled, which got lost in translation:

Google’s new social networking service, Google Buzz, has obviously been all over the news lately, in part for various complaints about Google’s privacy practices. Those complaints have focused on the way in which Buzz, enrollment in which was automatic for Gmail users, initially defaulted to effectively sharing users’ email contacts with the public. EPIC has filed a complaint with the FTC arguing that this combination of automatic enrollment and “opt-out” of information-sharing was an unfair or deceptive trade practice in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act.

But that’s not what caught my attention in Danielle’s post. What really set off alarm bells in my head was Danielle’s recounting how her children and their friends, all under the age of 13, suddenly had their Gmail accounts turned into Google Buzz accounts, and then proceeded to upload all sorts of information about themselves using the service. That raises the prospect that Google Buzz, by collecting such information without getting the appropriate parental consent, violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. I haven’t seen any discussion of this issue anywhere else.

COPPA is one of the few privacy statutes with real bite: it has strict rules that require substantial effort to follow, and the FTC has shown itself to be a vigorous enforcer. Indeed, the FTC has gone after two social networking sites for COPPA violations recently, and in one case imposed a fine of $1 million. So is Google violating COPPA? The answer is unclear but there’s definitely risk for Google here.

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Judge Posner’s Argument Concerning “A Failure of Capitalism”

88px-Richard_posner_harvardzSurely there are more pressing things to do at this hour than scan my Google Reader headlines (well, actually, I’ve become a Feedly user, but the Feedly feed comes from Reader, mostly).

Nonetheless,  I couldn’t pass up today’s essay by Seventh Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner, on Foreign Policy’s website.   Titled “The Real Danger of Debt,” the article is described as having been “adapted from” Judge Posner’s book, “A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ‘o8 and the Descent into Depression.”  In the article, Posner describes the “deeply wounded economy” of the United States, explaining that, essentially, “private savings are being borrowed by the government, combined with the government’s foreign borrowing, and then transferred to households to enable them to maintain their accustomed level of consumption. People are saving more, but government borrowing overwhelms their saving, with the result that aggregate saving — public plus private — is negative.”

He goes on to outline, in his usual clear, bracing style, the steps by which this state of affairs could lead to rising interest rates, instability in the value of the dollar, the loss of the dollar’s status as the chief  international reserve currency, increased savings rates, and decreased economic growth:

As real interest rates rise as a consequence of a growing public debt and declining demand for the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency, U.S. savings rates will rise and, by reducing consumption expenditures, slow economic activity. Economic growth may also fall as more and more resources are poured into keeping alive elderly people, most of whom are not highly productive members of society from an economic standpoint. The United States may find itself in the same kind of downward economic spiral that developing countries often find themselves in.

This ominous prediction of where current trends may lead us is dramatic in itself  (although, sadly, much less dramatic than it would have seemed in 2007).  But rather than the worrisome warnings about a second economic depression, the passages that struck me most are the ones characterizing the current political situation in the United States.  

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Fair Judges or Judge Shopping?

I had a couple of writing deadlines so I’m a bit late to the game on the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s extraordinary decision (or, more accurately, nondecision) in Allen v. State.  The Court was not split on whether Justice Gableman should recuse himself in all criminal cases. No Justice held that he should. Three did not reach the issue and three, essentially, expressed the view that he is not required to do so.

Rather, the principal division was over whether the question of an individual’s Justice recusal could be submitted to the Court as a whole. Chief Justice Abrahamson and Justices Bradley and Crooks wanted more briefing on the issue but it seems fairly evident that they believe that a majority of the justices considering the issue can force a fellow Justice off a case if they believe (or are willing to say) that there is either a statutory or constitutional requirement for that Justice to recuse herself.

Justices Prosser, Roggensack and Ziegler disagreed. They believe that the only issue before the Court is whether the justice at who a recusal motion is directed has given it the proper consideration. They went on to conclude that Justice Gableman had done so and made it clear that they thought Allen’s motion was pretty weak tea.

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