BBB National Programs’ Privacy Watchdogs Ensure Azerion’s Compliance with Digital Advertising and Children’s Privacy Best Practices
McLean, VA – March 5, 2024 - BBB National Programs’ Digital Advertising Accountability Program (DAAP) and Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) worked with Azerion Group to bring its gaming website, agame.com, into compliance with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self-Regulatory Principles for online interest-based advertising (IBA), CARU’s Advertising and Privacy Guidelines, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Azerion’s agame.com website came to the attention of DAAP and CARU through their collaborative monitoring of websites aimed at ensuring compliance with the DAA Principles, CARU’s Guidelines, and COPPA. During this monitoring, similarities were noted between agame.com and girlsgogames.com, a site also run by Azerion that was the subject of a 2021 monitoring case by BBB National Programs.
Azerion’s agame.com site offered free online games through a web browser without requiring a subscription or dedicated application software. Investigation revealed that the agame.com site collected—and allowed the third-party collection—of personal information from consumers. The agame.com site appeared to target children under 13, meeting the definition of a child-directed website under COPPA. This was evidenced by the prevalence of child-friendly subject matters and language, bright colors, and prominent child-oriented cartoon and video game characters. Because many games did not appear child-oriented and a significant over-13 audience also accesses the site, DAAP and CARU identified this as a mixed audience website. According to DAAP and CARU, agame.com also:
- Allowed U-13 users to register for accounts without a verifiable parental consent (VPC) process.
- Allowed U-13 users to engage in unmonitored commenting and chat features.
- Failed to provide age screening technology or a VPC process to differentiate between U-13 and over-13 users.
- Lacked real-time enhanced notice of third-party IBA collection.
In response to DAAP and CARU’s inquiry, Azerion conducted a thorough review of its practices to identify areas needing improvement and took several actions to ensure compliance with COPPA, CARU's Privacy Guidelines, and the DAA Principles.
COPPA and the DAA Sensitive Data Provision
- Azerion implemented an age gate on agame.com, dividing the site into two subdomains: agame.com for users 13 or older with third-party data collection, and kids.agame.com for under-13 users without third-party data collection, inappropriate games, or advertising.
- Azerion removed comment sections, games with in-game chat features, and account registration from agame.com to ensure compliance with regulations for any under-13 users who bypass the age gate.
Enhanced Notice of IBA Website Data Collection
- Azerion added an "Ad Choices" link to the agame.com footer, directing users to a separate Ad Choice page that fulfills DAA enhanced notice obligations, such as a description of agame.com’s third-party IBA practices, links to industry-developed IBA opt-out tools, and a statement of adherence to the DAA Principles.
In its statement, Azerion said, “We would like to reiterate that Azerion appreciates the Digital Advertising Accountability Program’s and Children’s Advertising Review Unit’s diligent evaluation of our platform as well as our cooperation throughout the process.”
All BBB National Programs case decision summaries can be found in the case decision library. For the full text of DAAP decisions, visit the DAAP Decisions and Guidance webpage.
Latest Podcasts
Likely to be Accessed: Do You Know Who Your Users Are?
Join us for this episode of Priv, where Dona Fraser is joined by Phyllis Marcus to discuss the broad operational, financial, and logistical impacts and challenges of trying to protect both children and teens online under the same laws and regulations.
Ad Watchers: Clear and Conspicuous Disclosures: Can You Read the Fine Print?
From small fonts to fast talking and distracting music, our hosts revisit this common issue area in advertising law, discuss what it takes for a disclosure to be considered clear and conspicuous, and share some lessons learned from a series of advertisements, both print and in TV commercials, that didn’t quite meet the clear and conspicuous standard.
Breaking Down AdTech: Cookies and Pixels and SDKs, Oh My!
This episode of Priv breaks down the most talked about issues in the adtech space, including the impact of the death of the cookie, the focus of regulators on the newest kid on the block - the pixel, lessons learned from recent SDK legal cases, what all of this looks like for children and teens, and what the legislative and regulatory road ahead looks like.
Ad Watchers: The best subject in advertising law: Is it puffery?
For this episode of Ad Watchers, join us for Eric’s favorite ad law topic: puffery, an exaggerated, blustering, or boastful statement or general claim that could only be understood to be an expression of opinion, not a statement of fact. But where is the line between puffery and a claim that needs a reasonable basis?