September 7, 2006
-
FTC SETTLEMENT
Today, we are announcing a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission
related to its investigation of alleged violations of the Children’s
Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).Out of Xanga’s roughly 29 million users, ~1.7 million accounts included
birth dates implying the user was younger than 13. As part of its
settlement, Xanga has agreed to shut down all 1.7 million of these
accounts and to pay a $1mm penalty to the FTC.Who were these users, and how were they able to sign up on Xanga? We address these questions in our official statement:
Before these issues came to our
attention, Xanga had in place a registration system intended to screen
out underage users – reflecting our longstanding policy that no one
under 13 is allowed to create an account. That system was
inadequate because users were able to initially indicate that they were
at least 13 years old when registering for the site, and then
afterwards post a younger age on their profile. We found that an array
of Xanga users created profiles with “birth dates” other than their
actual day of birth when establishing their weblog. For example, pet
bloggers registered with their pet’s birthday, engaged bloggers
registered with their wedding date, and religious bloggers registered
with their “born again” date.Additionally, almost half of these accounts belonged to users who are
now over 13, although they may have been under 13 at time of
registration.To any over-age users whose accounts were shutdown: first, my deepest
apologies. I can not express enough how difficult it was for us
to shut down sites created by users who potentially met Xanga’s age
requirements, but had, for one reason or another, input a birth date
indicating an age younger than 13. Many user have contacted us
about the deletion of their valid accounts – and after receiving their
restoration application, we have been able to restore many of the
accounts. If your site is still shut down, please contact us here for details on the delete restoration process.I’d like to end by sharing that we take safety very seriously, and have
long been committed to making our site safer for our members.
We’ve been baking ratings and/or flagging into all of our new features:
Photoblogs, Videoblogs, Audioblogs (pending!), Tags, and Search.
We look forward to continuing to innovate to make Xanga safer for our
users – as well as keeping the site fun and easy to use.In the meantime, please take a few minutes to read our statement about the many safety measures we have put in place over the last year.
Comments (101)
Bummer. I’d better go check my kids sites now to see if they are still there…
sigh, stupid kids.
Thanks for letting us know what was going on.
I know it was a necessary thing for you all to do, and I believe that you all have had nothing but our best interest at heart during this whole process.
I know you have had a rough time during this process and I am glad to see that this is completed.
thanks for providing a place for us to vent and share our lives and stories….
Tina
yea i heard all about that. It sucks that you guys get in trouble because some kids aren’t doing the right thing.
I just read about this on MSN…
oh dear.
How can they read this if you shut down their site?
dang that sucks
Ouch, that sucks. I wish myspace would do something like this.. I wonder how much their fine would be!
sigh.. just so sad. i’m sorry about this, man. many of your readers already don’t have a very positive view of the FTC, and they had to make you guys the first blog site to take such a large hit. this is just too much.
i dunno what kinda revenue streams you guys have, but i hope you can shrug this off, and keep on going strong. take care john..
I am glad for this. I am glad a settlement could be reached, because I would hate for something worse to happen to Xanga because of the indescretion of a few individuals.
If my cat wants a Xanga weblog, she’s just going to have to wait until she’s 13, just like everybody else.
Can a dog be judged in dog years?
this really sucks for xanga…
that’s crazy
very sorry to hear about this unfortunate incident. i cant believe that we live in a time and world where our government established on freedom of speech and beliefs now feels it must inhibit and punish for free expression.
thanks for keeping xanga alive!
shouldn’t you link to this on the front page?
I don’t know how Xanga could be at fault with this. You have illustrated, after all, that a person starting their account was made aware that they couldn’t own an account unless they were age 13 or over.
If anything, the guilt of negligence (and the fine) should be in the hands of parents everywhere who should be responsible enough to monitor what their children do when they use the internet.
There is no possible way I can imagine Xanga being at fault with this. My support is with you.
Thanks for creating Xanga and keeping it going.
If you do indeed take safety seriously, some ISP blocks and anti stalker and anti harrasment measures would be good. Not that you’ll do it, but I will keep asking.
That’s awesome Xanga Team! Children don’t need to have xanga accounts, they are way too little! I really think you should have to be eighteen to have a website on xanga anyway. It’s even too dangerous for teens.
thank you.
I hope that this won’t hurt xanga’s long term finances at a million dollars is a lot of money! In my opinion, xanga has the better interface compared to myspace. You guys keep making vast improvements and it’s nice to see that the blogging component is the shining piece for xanga, unlike myspace’s which is really just an annoying link to the “account” page. Either case, I hope this won’t hurt you guys in the long term and may xanga keep ticking away.
That’s completely absurd. You guys have been working to insane degress to improve security and safety for this site, and the FTC still wants to penalize you? I am personally somewhat outraged that our government has the audacity to fault you on this, and not, say, the actual users or their parents – and they collect $1mm (one million?) from you. It’s pretty clear what their motivation was – the FTC used a guise of morality and concern for children to fill their deep pockets.
You guys work very hard on this site. My deepest apologies that you had to be involved in this joke of a legal fiasco. You didn’t deserve it at all. Regardless, keep up the good work with Xanga – it has always been my networking site of choice.
_K
hefty fine man
Seems a little pointless to post an apology to people whose sites you shut down…. when they can’t read it because (duh) their sites are shut down. Maybe it would be better for you to post this on the front page and send a mass mailing/email out to the people affected.
One bad apple. . . oops, er, 1.7m bad appels, huh? Sorry to see you have to dish out enough dead presidents for me to almost retire . . . hope this doesn’t break your bank! Must’ve really hurt to write that check!
That is sad to hear. I wish you would put this right at the first page of your site. I know you’ve tried to make this community safer which I appreciate.
Whatever happened to parental control?
You know who really is at fault here:
PARENTS!!
When will the government and the rest of the world realize that in the end, it’s up to parents to police their children and their activities. I’m so sick and tired of companies getting blamed for things like this when they take the initiative to make sure it doesn’t happen.
This is really absurd and I hope that the majority of Xanga users would send an e-mail to the FTC to protest this idiotic fine. Out of all the community based sites out there, Xanga is practically the only who is CONSTANTLY working to protect it’s users in a VERY visible and tangible way.
man a million bux for that? ouch. oh wells, guess it could’ve been worse.
your efforts are definitely appreciated… sorry you guys have to deal with such a headache…. good luck and thanks again for all you guys do!
I’m sorry it had to come to this John but to be fair, everyone had a warning about this. I’ve seen this go around before where accounts were shut down due to not fulfilling the age requirement and since this is the case, why didn’t valid users update their “birth date”? I’m sorry you guys had to shell out the $1mm b/c people couldn’t enter a correct birthdate.
seems like a parent problem, not an FTC issue. Folks…monitor your kids. And what about parents who start blogs for their babies? Meanwhile, the actual kiddie porn sites are probably still up and running….shameful they would go after Xanga!
A hell of a lot that’s been going on in the last few months makes sense now.
Good luck with the cash.
I have to agree with all of the prior comments. Clearly, parents are the ones at fault here- not Xanga. Some people cannot face their own faults. As for the $1 million fine, that is absolutely absurd.
This whole situation reeks — Like kids won’t just lie about their ages all the way through the xanga process now. Geez. $1 mill?? What the heck?
I’m really sorry to hear this, but I hope xanga weathers it well and comes out on top. I’ve been a loyal user for years and love the site.
That’s.. a lot of money.. e_e
It sucks, but I have to say, a trip thought your newly created Boost feature could have rousted out a bunch of underaged accounts from the photos posted, which I did point out to you in your guestbook about a month ago. It’s no secret that underage kids have been using xanga without parental consent for years now.
It has also been no secret that the FTC has been cracking down hard-core on violators of the child protection act. A big wave went through the internet about a year ago regarding this. I’m surprised that you guys didn’t get the memo since it was plastered on nearly every website that allows the posting of photos. You guys have really done very little to assure any sort of actual security for xanga, so while it’s surprising that you weren’t very aware of the law, it is not very surprisig that your team did very little to assure this kind of action.
Maybe, for a change, you and your team might actually stop trying to compete with MySpace and listen to your paying members who have been asking for years for security measures to prevent predators and stalkers, many of whom flock to sites like xanga, who have taken a never-take-care attitude toward proving security for it’s paid members. It’s only sad to see that it takes a million dollar lawsuit for your and the other xanga team-members to open your eyes and see what many of us have been telling you for years.
Hope xanga improves its security and starts providing things like ISP blocking that other blog sites have been offering for free since their inception.
that sucks …
“I’d like to end by sharing that we take safety very seriously, and have long been committed to making our site safer for our members.“
John, if this is true, then you may want to consider a better blocking mechanism than the one currently in place – one based on a user’s IP address rather than the screen name. I know of several people having been/ being harrassed by the same individual using several different screen names… you or at least your staff know of one person who was and still is a victim of this and yet nothing constructive has been done and the harrasser is still at large and has even commented on this very entry!
I’ll grant that it won’t be 100% effective in blocking a determined harrasser but it will be a much more effective system than the one in place now since it’s a lot harder to change ones IP address than sign up with a new xanga screen name. And if you are concerned about the privacy of the harrasser in question, don’t allow the blocker to see the actual IP address – perhaps there is a way to use the screen name as a base… use the most recent IP address used by the screen name to be blocked to that the blocker only sees and blocks the screen name but the actual block function uses the IP address.
It seems to me that developing such a system is needed much more than some of the recent improvements such as the private messaging and the video and photo tabs. I do realize that such a system takes time and is not something that can be whipped up in an instant, but I know a lot of people would like to see something more effective than what we have now.
I’m actually kind of glad this happened. Yes, it is crappy for the 1.7 million sites that got shut down, but if this had never happened, something worse could have happened.
I mean, this is a public statement showing everyone that Xanga is taking steps towards making the community a ‘safer’ place. You can’t be blamed for something you are trying to prevent. You can only do so much to protect younger generations from being victims, but if they are so persistant that they HAVE to have a xanga, and are allowed access to the site long enough and frequent enough that they do become victims, that isn’t Xanga’s responsibility.
So yeah, the fine is crazy, and people are going to be annoyed, but in the end, this is better than the alternative.
-Meagan
jeeze! and i thought facebook was having a hard time! THE INTERNET IS UNDER ATTACK!
That’s messed up if you have to pay, instead of just closing the “under 13 sites”.
Is the class of 2013 blogring gone yet? It needs to be, in my opinion.
And hehe, you closed my old site. No anger, though, even though I WAS thirteen, exactly.
The FTC’s press release can be found here. Reading it further infuriates me, because I find it to be somewhat duplicitous:
“According to the FTC, Xanga.com collected, used, and disclosed personal information from children under the age of 13 without first notifying parents and obtaining their consent. The penalty is the largest ever assessed by the FTC for a COPPA violation, and is more than twice the next largest penalty.“
Um, no, Xanga.com didn’t collect said information from users, they willingly provided it. And also, exactly how do you propose Xanga go about notifying the guardians of prospective users? Are they going to require users to supply email or home addresses of parents, along with phone numbers and other forms of contact information that would allow Xanga.com to contact parents? Quite frankly, I don’t understand exactly what kind of practical method there would be for notifying parents of their childrens’ activities – it would probably require an act of privacy violation to garner such information.
Programs like the FTC make me very upset, and are the very reason I am disgusted by what our government does to keep private companies and organizations subjugated.
damn the man.
Hey, could you set up an RSS feed for that Xanga Press blog?
what a completely and utterly ridiculous abuse of power.
thank you guys for sticking through it and still keeping your quality site up and running. i have faith it you guys.
I find it appalling that Xanga must pay a such a large fine. Where does parental supervision come into play in this issue? It seems to me that the FTC has shifted the burden TO entities such as Xanga & away FROM where it should be! I’d like to read COPPA. Could you post a link to the Act please? I can’t be the only person around here interested in what our government is forcing upon you! Thanks for your efforts.
I am so sorry about all that… this is horrible. I wish kids could find something better to do with their time… like be kids!
I am appalled that society seems to have decided that internet sites need to be responsible for monitoring their children.
As a parent, I am offended that this is even suggested! It is my job to monitor what sites my children are accessing on line – not the sites they are accessing! I don’t expect anyone else to do my job for me and no other parent should! If you are allowing your child to go on line without any control over what they are viewing and what information they are revealing, then you are at fault! Parents need to do their job and stop blaming everyone else when they fail!!!
Since when did we decide that the entire rest of the world needs to parent our children?!?
This whole view is outrageous and it needs to stop!
I’m with Karanis on this. I find it ridiculous. It’s nearly impossible to keep the under 13 set off xanga. Parents are somewhat to blame for not keeping a closer eye on their kids’ online time and not helping xanga enforce their rules.
don’t let the MAN bring you down!!!
= )
Stupid kids. But hey, is security such a concern because of moral justness at xanga, or fear of additional lawsuits? Not that the latter is an unfounded or wrong reason, certainly not, in this world ruled by the courts, it seems.
Stupid people; what real harm is going to come to people who are under 13? And what proof is there that the birthday put on the site is correct, anyway? I will admit, mine isn’t. Surely there is some way this stupid thing could have been fought?
Will they not be satisfied until blogs are made illegal in general?
I’m sincerely sorry that the FTC fined you guys so heavily. What they did was unreasonable, especially in light of your recent efforts to improve security and protect minors!
I hope that this fine does not hurt Xanga in the long term. I whole-heartedly support you guys! Please let us users know if there is ANYTHING WE CAN DO, like write letters to the FTC, etc?
Thanks for letting us know. You guys are doing a great job I might add. I completely understand why you had to do what you did, although my account didn’t fall under the affected definitions… But please, keep up the good work! P.S. I’m sorry you guys had to pay soo much.
Howard Stern was right: the FTC sucks!
So damn ironic because I know that you, John, really care about those kids.
I hope you are feeling ok today. Sometimes the day after can be the most depressing. You have all these people who are with you.
Oh wow what a bummer. But it sounds like you did the right thing, and I know Xanga is always on the eye for making things safer and more efficient both.
Hang in there, and keep up the good fight. Thanks guys
It sickens me that my taxes are partly funding this FTC nonsense.
Maybe everyone should have to use a credit card or driver’s license for age verificiation. Up the age to 16 when people can get at least a state I.D.
Sorry it cost you $1m.
I still find it a shame that instead of taking proper responsibility for their errors, parents and people continue to attack companies like you and Myspace for their (the parents) shortcomings.
What makes this even sadder is that you guys have already been installing proper safeguards for children on this site before the suit.
However, you have also spent a lot of time making Xanga a proper rival to Myspace in the stead of beefing up security. I would think, that as you said, since security is of the utmost importance, that you would focus more on the security than the extras like messaging.
Irregardless, I assume you came to my site in response to that email I sent?
I’m a man who believes in our freedom of speech, although I recognise the fact that you, Xanga, are in charge and reserve the rights to delete accounts as you see fit.
As my letter stated, we, the Xanga community, appreciate the wonderful community you provide us on a constant daily basis. In fact, I haven’t had a single bug problem in months. As opposed to many months ago when I couldn’t even enter an entry without getting a “bug” and losing all my work. Kudos on the hard work gentlemen. Myspace is still riddled with multiple script bugs, errors, and the odd mishap.
I’m sticking by Xanga 100%. So keep doing a good job and please, leave the parenting to the parents. None of us will hold you responsible for someone else’s mistakes, so don’t let anyone else do so.
Thanks again, and have an awesome day.
-Zeus
ftc sucks ass
Ever so sorry to hear about the massive hit in the bank account. BUT… I warned you about this years ago. I asked you work closer with the community and ax every blog that was “underage.” You ignored the evil Dread Pirate. I am sorry you lost a pile of gold. But next time you may take user requests more seriously.
Your next step is going to have to be to get a team to crack down on porn/self-posted images of underage children. AX them with extreme prejudice. No apologies necessary. If you think the fine for the under 13 crowd was hard. The fine for posting underage nude pics will put you out of business.
Sail on… sail on!!!
when there’s no one left to blame….
we’ll all know who the real culprits are.
the parents.
I do not agree with the FTC’s decision. Sorry this is happening.
that’s a bummer. hope this didn’t bring down your birthday celebration. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! =)
i love xanga =(
hey john, thanks for taking care of us.
~
I love my Xanga and I am sorry that this happened,you do a good job.
you guys rock!
hey like your xanga sall you posted on the web site and thought i new you but probly dont cause i know like five johns well if you wont halla back.
from coco p.s how old are you you sound 13
kumika izuhata
Sounds… like a mess. I was in college at the time I got an account. You guys weren’t even around when I was 13. So you don’t need to worry about me.
Hey John,
Not sure who’s “officially” in charge of maintaining the RSS feeds…but when I go to “Feedvalidator.com” and check my xanga feed, it pops up this…
This feed is valid, but may cause problems for some users. We recommend fixing these problems.
*
line 1, column 359: Image link doesn’t match channel link [help]
… tton.gif<link>http://www.xanga.com<title>Thur …
^
*
line 1, column 927: item should contain a guid element (10 occurrences) [help]
… 059941/item.html#firstcomment<title>Well F***.</ …
*just a note, the last line wehre the 3 “*s” are is edited because you can’t rate comments yet, and I don’t want to offend anyone.
FIGHT THE POWER!
My deepest condolances on the fine. My curiosity has been piqued by this as I wonder has any of the other blogging sites been visited by the wrath of the BushFTC nazi’s? Further, I wonder if the fines are evenhanded in the punishment fitting the breach of the law,i.e. the girl who tried to fly overseas to meet the man she met on My{crap}Space. I think a overview of all the blog providers Xanga has shown due diligence to ensure legal compliance and the safety of it’s users.
no props for you
This is truly, really sad.
good job… they had it coming… now you can try kicking all the stupid people off xanga!
but what I really came here for was to say that I’m noticing much more POP-UP ads on xanga lately… please stop it with this annoying, intrusive, and stupifying form of advertisement.
that’s all…
I read an article on this on the FTC site. Biased, man. They told very little about the case and didn’t give an argument for both sides, much less say anything about Xanga’s defense. That made me frustrated. It seems that this is just another ploy to make parents think the government cares about helping keep kids safe on the Internet, even if they have to take out a good company to make it seem that way. Stupid politics.
You guys are doing a great job. Keep up the good work. You’re in my prayers. Really, you are. God bless.
The fine proves the law is an ass. Without going for extraordinary measures to prove age (as you do with the EX ratings), anyone can say anything they like. Basically you are being fined because the storytellers can’t keep their stories straight. Best thing for you to do is to help them! The profile could reflect age-group rather than exact age which would only be entered on the joining form. The whole thing is reminiscent of Bill and Monica, there is the whole world laughing at the US getting its knickers in a twist because Bill had sex (if indeed it was sex), which was breaking his marriage vows, and then lied about it. Who wouldn’t have? Now Xanga is being fined over some law which the whole world knows is unenforceable. Its so effing hypocritical. Move your business to mellower climes!
you guys really need to look into the profile “ohfrick” they are constantly stalking my friends and i. and are very disturbed
I am glad that Xanga is concerned about Safety. Wouldn’t it be nice if others took the same approach? However, I don’t feel it’s Xanga’s place or the FTC’s place to police the internet. I am a parent myself. I’m well aware that I can’t watch my kids 24/7. I can however unplug the computer or if I felt that I couldn’t trust my child to that extent I could just do away with the internet service altogether. It is my responsibility and the responsibility of all parents to “police” what our children do.
Thank you for the info about audio manager. Will we be able to use our own voices, as long as we have recorded some talking/singing? I know so little about this-lol!
John, several things come to mind as I read your posting and the subsequent comments. First, like many others, I’m really sorry to see you guys caught in the middle of this. And I think the actions you have taken, had to be taken. Secondly, while certainly I agree that parents have to do what they can to monitor the kids access to internet, that’s no longer a sufficient deterent, which is why I think that expectations of internet sites doing all they can is also appropriate. For instance, I know the school to which my kids attend have been granting relatively open access to the internet, from classrooms, study halls, and library, for probably 5+ years. Likewise, the public library provides relatively unblocked access for that long if not longer. And then there’s the various friends who have access in their homes… or even from their PSPs… There’s not a lot that I, a dad who is working, can do to track where the kids are accessing while I’m not with them. So I’ve told my kids, for years, the appropriate behaviors that they are expected to maintain. Does that mean that they conform 100% of the time? Be serious… no, I occasionally have to remind the kids I still have at home (and for that matter, I still email the ones who live on their own now) when I think they need to edit and remove info that is too revealing regarding phone numbers, etc.
And for that matter, let’s pretend that a parent decides to go the full route, works from their home, home schools, stands looking over the shoulder of the child until they are 18.
Does that mean the child is safe from the bad guys out there?
Nope. Here I am, 51, and my company has all sorts of firewalls, spam blocking, etc. And I still get hundreds of emails, some with porn in them, etc. past the blocking software every week.
I’m doing what I can, and it still gets in. So I really appreciate any assistance people can provide regarding safety.
Lastly, a previous commenter was asking about IP blocking. That only helps in the case where a) the offender is using a static address, and b) the offender is the only one using that static address. Most companies and ISPs provide dynamic addresses, which means that it would be tough to block by ISP. And if, for instance, the user were using AOL, you could easily end up blocking most or all users from AOL.
Of course, if you want to reduce things to a fixed set of users reading your blog, that can be set up on Xanga with protected postings (10 user list for free, larger lists for a fee).
Sorry to hear that you were fined all that money after you had put all these safe guards in place. It does not seem just. Judi
John,
Just dropped by to say I hope you guys are still alive and kicking…. Much Xanga love to you all…cause I know it has been quite a kick in the gut with the fines…..but we move forward..onward and upward from here right??
God bless you all,
Ugh stupid youngins…its not ur fault xanga, they should fine all those stupid kids for faking their ages. Well thanks for all the good work!
john… it’s moon… hook me up with a xanga t shirt… =)
911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB! FIND OUT THE TRUTH ABOUT 911 WATCH TERRORSTORM CLICK HERE WATCH THIS
Wow It’s amazing how Hard you guys work to keep this site safe and Still this happens.
You guys will always be my first choice in Online blogs.
First, to comment on this particular post. I’m glad, in a way, that the FTC caught that. Please don’t take this the wrong way. I do think it’s a massive bummer, this legal fiasco. Despite taking the best security measures you guys can, kids are getting smarter and smarter these days, and they will and do find ways around it all if given the time. Look at it this way, at least now you know where some weak spots are, and you can improve on them. n.n
And now, for the other bit I was going to say.
Wow, I hadn’t expected to get a comment from a staff member on my griping post. I know I sounded very pessmistic about the issues I addressed. I still am actually. And I really hope the future upgrades do change my opinions, and that they do make the site more xanga-ish. I understand that change is good, but some of the new additions do tend to make me think Xanga is heading more towards the Myspace end of things. There are still features here that Myspace doesn’t have, and I treasure those features because they are unique to Xanga. It’s because of these that I’m still sticking with this place. After all, I took all the trouble to design my page all nifty like, something I can’t do on Myspace at all. I just don’t want to see what makes this place unique being tossed to the wayside in favor of the so called “popular” ways of operating. While I am unhappy with the current trend (though I might be part of only a small margin of Xanga users) I do look forward to future upgrades.
Again, bummer on the FTC crackdown, and I don’t think it will be the last, considering that many young teens will most likely continue to lie about their ages no matter what the restrictions may be. All I can say is look on the bright side. It shows there’s still secrutiy improvements to be made, and what doesn’t kill you guys makes ya stronger. n.n
Are you a descendant of the sheeple who turned in Ann Frank
As the Supreme Court showed in their ruling on the subject: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/29/scotus.web.indecency/ that law IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! How can you live & work in NYC and not learn the Howard Stern lesson
Capitulation is an admission of guilt
When you let the MEologian and his biblehumping sychophantic moralist run the show, then you might as well throw in the towel completely!!! Since you’re out to make THIS MyXangaSpace and get the big payday, that million dollars would have been better spent FIGHTING that unconstitutional charge…hell, if you hadn’t let this place disintergrate into the 700 Club you might even have been able to ask Xangans to donate money for the defense fund.
ONCE you say mea culpa you become an easy mark for all the fascist fundamentalists on a jihad to make US be their babysitters
hey john…..i’ve been here pretty much since the very early days, and i’ve always stood by xanga…and i do still..i’m very sorry to hear about the rediculous fine…..it’s just absurd…i feel that you did your best to make sure that under 13′s knew that they were not allowed to sign up for accounts. if they went against that rule, then it should be their fault. I’m not sure what more you could have done. ask everyone to fax you a copy of their birth certificate and photo id? i mean..that’s just getting absurd. As a parent, i believe that it’s my duty and responsibility to teach my child what is and isn’t acceptable to do on the internet. whilst it’s true, that i can’ only watch her internet usage while she is at home, i make certain that she knows what sort of sites she is allowed to go on and what she should stay away from. that is my duty.
so I’m very sorry that you’ve been left with a massive fine because of this whole situation…..
– On a slightly related note:
Does Xanga have a system in place to detect and prevent/way to ban users that place inappropriate comments on a minor’s blog? If not, one is needed.
At the end of the day, it’s not Xanga’s job, or the FTC’s, or even the parents (! I’ll get plenty of flak for that one, but let me explain) to protect the kids from every evil that can befall them from Internet predators.
But all of these so-called wiser entities — Xanga, the FTC, the parents — can and should do what they can in terms of protection and guidance, but there will never be any guarantees. The ultimate responsibility is with the young people themselves — to behave sensibly, to follow the rules, to listen to their parents, to “not take candy from strangers,” etc.
The fine is ridiculous and unfair, and you have my sympathies. You also have my admiration for the heroic measures that you have taken to keep Xanga flourishing in the face of this maelstrom.
Ouch. I hope this all works out for the best.
Where is Xanga.com even going to get all that money??
hey xanga is great thank guys
This spells the end of Xanga.
I am not a fan of the FCC on issues like this. I don’t even understand how having a site hurts 13 year olds. It helps them to express themselves emotionally and academically. If there is something on someone else’s site that is potentially a “bad influence”, they can still read it. And finally, I think it is the parent’s responsibility to monitor their kids activities and interactions. I’m considering to what extent my kids (who’s ages range from 5 to 10) can use the internet and am seriously considering software that only allows sites that I specify (and my kids will have to come to me when they hear about a new site, or if they want to try to find something, do it in my presence). And then of course, the software can also track where they’ve been or what they’ve done for my review. That 1 million comes out of our pockets, really either in fees or potential services (although admittedly I’ve let my premium membership lapse. But I do plan to rejoin, maybe if I can get to blogging more regularly again).
I agree – ouch on those fines. And worse, how can you keep people from typing in phony birthdates? Say I’m a 12 year old… I just type in my mother’s birthday. ((I suppose that isn’t a penalizing thing for you, since that person is responsible for their own actions, right?)) I lie all the time, though – sites I buy things from… I give a bogus e-mail addy that I rarely check so I don’t have to get spam to my real e-mail, and I often type in information’s phone number (555-1212) as my phone number, because I don’t think they should have access to that personal information.
Anyhow, thanks for directing me to this. I was mainly concerned that the fine might hurt Xanga so badly that there would be difficulty in keeping the site(s) open… maybe a good marketing ploy for getting more people to buy Premium for, oh, say seven years or so? ((LoL!!)) Kidding… *wink* Thanks again, John – and I’m sorry this got so huge on y’all.