Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the recording company of Justin Timberlake and Bruce Springsteen, has been sued by the U.S. for collecting and disclosing personal data about 30,000 young children without informing their parents.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. The suit, which alleges violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, seeks unspecified money damages and an injunction.
“Sony Music collected, used and/or disclosed personal information from children without first providing their parents with notice of its information practices,” the complaint says.
The FTC claims Sony Music, a Sony unit that operates more than 1,100 music-related Web sites, collected information from more than 30,000 children under age 13 since 2004, despite claiming on its sites that visitors that young wouldn’t be allowed to register.
Sony agreed to pay a $1 million fine and hire a compliance officer who will put a screening process in place to prevent the collection of such data, according to two people close to the agreement who declined to be identified. The settlement may be announced as early astoday, they said.
The sites collected information such as names, addresses, mobile phone numbers, e-mail addresses, dates of birth, ZIP codes, usernames and gender, the FTC said.
