It's not about selling data; it covers collection of and storage of data, no matter the use, though most lawsuits that have actually involved COPPA do end up being about marketing or sale of data. That is why AO3 requires 13+ along with effectively every other website. Viewing websites usually doesn't require collection of data, at least not personally identifying data as is generally accepted, so it does not apply to viewing alone; however, allowing anything at all to be posted at least potentially does constitute collecting data, even if it is anonymous. For example, a completely anonymous comment box could in theory be used by a 12 year old to post their name, which would be a violation.
Schools probably have exemptions generally speaking (IANAL but that makes sense), and the government isn't usually subject to those sorts of laws in the first place. The government already has your data. Parents can also permit those under 13 to give their data to sites, which I imagine would make most schools fine; children are not typically going to enroll themselves in non-governmental schools. However, for practical reasons as well as CYA, most sites will not accept that permission and make the 13+ thing a hard requirement.
It's ultimately up to the people who run websites if they take obvious BS like "I wasn't born yesterday, I was born last week!" as something that constitutes needing to remove the person. I've seen plenty that did so, but I seriously doubt that would actually hold up in a court. The problem is that most website owners don't want to get to that point because of one user and will just ban them, again for CYA.
Comment on September 2026 Newsletter, Volume 215
MalcontentCatboy Tue 06 Oct 2026 10:02PM UTC
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xblackspiderviperx Tue 06 Oct 2026 11:58PM UTC
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