September 7, 2006
NEW YORK, Sep. 7 - In response to the Federal Trade Commission’s announcement of a settlement with Xanga.com related to its investigation of alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the following is the statement of Xanga.com CEO, John Hiler:“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.
September 6, 2006
This is the first entry in our Xanga Press Center blog. This Press Center also includes links to our press releases.