The Portland Press Herald today has an article about four groups suing in Federal Court to prevent Maine’s new law from going into effect. The new law makes it illegal to collect or receive health or personal information from minors for marketing purposes.
The Maine law is aimed at extending a federal law that bars companies from obtaining personal information online from any child younger than 13 without parental consent. The Maine law was goes further and protects the health and personal information of those younger than 18.
The groups don’t want the law to go into effect as it is scheduled to on September 12, 2020.
The groups say that there are a lot of unintended consequences with the law that would prevent appropriate disclosure of personal information, like test scores being sent to colleges or newspapers reporting honor roll lists.
This law appears to have been intended for those websites that grab a minor’s personal information, like Facebook or MySpace. The question is, should minors be subject to marketing at all? If so, how much is appropriate?
