Well, let's start with the basics. One: there is a 99.99999999999999% chance that if you do nothing, nothing will come to you. However, that slight chance just might come back to haunt you, so you should probably do something.

Ryan's idea is pretty much right. Your best bet is to ban/delete the member, let him/her register again (but certainly don't tell him/her to register) as a teenager or older, and you'll be legally safe.

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Ryan;
I agree with that and think i said it. If anyone joins who is under 12, you have to remove them. That is obvious and we should all follow that practice. The problem is that this is a pretty loose law because we all know that the reality is that many people are just getting around it by making their birthdate when registering. So you follow it if someone makes it obvious and you have covered your butt.

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Ah, ok, sorry...I may have just misinterpreted this:I took that and assumed by "dont make a big deal out of it", you meant "do nothing"...the thing is, in this situation, that member never lied about his/her age but instead was never asked for it.

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I've done that a lot, and on my 13th birthday I was like "Hey, I can sign up for websites wihout lying!"

I thought that law was repealed or something like that

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Thank you all very much for your advice, it's appreciated. I have emailed the child explaining the problem about COPPA and I will be removing her membership from the forums now

This is definitely the ultimate way of dealing with it.

I have a whole area for people under 12, however, their parents must sign them up through me (so their parents must be a member first, to ask me).

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Have any kids actually joined your community? How many?

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To be honest, I don't think you need to go as far as banning someone just because they're 12, COPPA or not for all anyone knows, their birthday could be the day after you banned them.

I don't ask for age on registration, particularly because of the way SMF requests parental permission, and as it turned out some of my members were actually 10 and have probably turned 13 by now, and one of my moderators is 12, turning 13 in a few days. As long as they know their own risks of providing certain information to me (that being only their email address, anything else at their own discretion), I'm happy.

I have been contacted by the father of a 10 year old who wanted to join but that was over a different issue.

Just my opinion though.

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It's the law...Whether or not you agree with the law doesn't matter, you still have to follow it.

The fact that the members will be 13 one day doesn't matter...Of course they will be, everybody will be...but if you are allowing people who you know are under 13 register without parental permission, you are breaking the law, period.

The best way to avoid this is to ask birthdate on registration. If they are under 13, either require parental permission or deny registration all together. That's what we do here at AF. If somebody tries to register at AF and is under 13, they are denied registration - We don't even ask for parental permission. If somebody lies about their age, saying they're over 13 when they actually are not, that's okay - We did our job by asking, and there's nothing we can do about them lying.

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