Recent research commissioned by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy allege that the Echo Dot Kids Edition's privacy practices violate the  Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law protecting the personal information of people under 13. The industry groups lodged the complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) arguing that amongst other things, Amazon fails to obtain proper parental consent to use children's data. You can read a copy of the Echo Kids Privacy complaint online. 

On February 21, 2019, more than a dozen child advocacy groups sent a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calling for an investigation as to whether Facebook has engaged in unfair or deceptive practices in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Advocates filed the complaint in response to unsealed documents from a 2012 class action lawsuit against Facebook, in which the technology giant was accused of targeting children to expand revenue for online games. Though the class action settled in 2016, advocates believe more needs to be done, especially to ensure that Facebook doesn’t take advantage of children and their parents in the future.  Internal Facebook memos, secret strategies, and employee emails were among the 135 pages of documents unsealed from the 2012 lawsuit.  They allegedly revealed that the company knowingly deceived children into making in-game purchases and crafted an e...