New Marketing Legislation

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Later this month, the state of Maine will implement legislature regulating the collection and use of health-related and personal information of minors in their state. Maine’s Act to Prevent Predatory Marketing Practices against Minors goes into effect on September 12, and adds additional regulatory restrictions to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) established by the Federal Trade Commission.

COPPA has been active since 1998, and requires verified parental consent before a site may collect personal information from children under the age of 13. The Maine Act differs to COPPA in certain regards:

• Maine defines a minor as anyone under the age of 18 years of age


• Health-related information has an expansive definition and includes “any information about an individual or a member of the individual’s family relating to health, nutrition, drug or medication use, physical or bodily condition, mental health, medical history, medical insurance coverage or claims or other similar data.”


• COPPA is written for website operators, Maine’s Act applies generally to persons, broadly defined as "an individual, firm, partnership, corporation, association, syndicate, organization, society, business, trust, attorney-in-fact and every natural or artificial legal entity." The Maine Act also expands past online information collection to regulate other forms of collection.


• The Maine Act prohibits three categories of activity – unlawful collection of data from minors, unlawful use of data from minors and predatory marketing against minors.
  The Maine Act includes provisions for significant fines and private causes of action with the potential for attorney's fees.

Many organizations are looking to revise their current policy and while we encourage these revisions we are unable to provide legal advice – nor should this post be considered direction. We encourage you to access the links referencing the legislation, as well as tips from Winston & Strawn LLP (found through a simple online search) and consult your legal representatives regarding the necessary steps to update your current collection strategy.