[POLICY] COPPA: Information for Scouts Under 13 Years Old

[optimist]

First and foremost, despite the use restrictions placed on people under the age of 13, there is plenty of help and support available to you. Keep reading - these helpful resources are noted later in this message.

As a youth under 13 years of age, you can read everything in these forums and throughout the web site, you simply can't write any messages in these forums. This probably doesn't seem fair but there's a good reason for this rule. Simply stated, there is a U.S. law called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (or COPPA for short) which was written to try to do a good thing but has resulted in some bad things and we want to make sure this law never affects MeritBadge.com in a bad way. The only way to accomplish this is to forbid all youth under the age of 13 from providing any personal information and participating in these forums.

So what exactly is COPPA? Well, it's a law that lays down a bunch of rules that anyone who "operates a website" must follow. This law draws the youth/adult line at 13 years of age. The law explicitly forbids collecting personal information, and in general discourages communication between "website operators" and "children" over the internet. It does, however, allow one-time responses, like answering questions (as long as this doesn't involve "collecting personal information"). For more information on COPPA visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm. The text of the law is available at http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm.

In addition to criminal liability, the COPPA law can also be used in civil cases. Civil lawsuits can be filed regardless of whether the COPPA law was violated or not. We are aware of several examples where innocent communication over the interent carried unforseen and unwelcome consequences for the website operator.

Now that you know what you're not allowed to do, let me tell you what you are allowed to do. As stated above, you can read everything in these forums and throughout the web site. MeritBadge.com went for ten years without these forums and still provided Boy Scouts like you with excellent support.

If you have a burning question you really want to ask of a lot of knowledgeable people, make use of Scouts-L. Scouts-L is a discussion list where Scouters (youth and adults) ask each other Scouting questions. Anything you email to the list gets forwarded to about 2000 scouters. Not just anyone can send mail to this list--you have to join and be a member. Technically, this list isn't a "website", so it doesn't fall under the COPPA. Scouts-L is not affiliated with the BSA, the GSUSA, or this web site and operates independently.

To join Scouts-L, you need to send a message to the unmanned "listserver" software which is on a machine at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. There is nobody physically at the listserver reading or reviewing messages...it is all done electronically. In the body of your posting, you need to only provide one line of information:

SUB SCOUTS-L firstname lastname

That's all. You MUST use your REAL first and last name because the listserver's software is 'trained" not to take "screen names" or "userids". Send the message line to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.TCU.EDU and you should receive back two messages. The first one confirms that you do want to become part of Scouts-L; the second one welcomes you to the "international Roundtable meeting which NEVER ends!"

If you are under 13, we encourage you not to engage in private e-mail exchanges with other members. You should only reply to the listserver where your conversation is very public. Please do not provide personal information about yourself such as your school, address or phone number when you particpate in an online discussion.

If you choose not to become part of Scouts-L and you still want to ask your question, simply get a parent, guardian, or a Scout Leader to join our forums and ask your question for you.