Children’s Privacy: NetChoice seeks to invalidate California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC)
NetChoice, a tech industry group that includes Amazon, AOL, Google, Meta, and TikTok, has sued to block California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) law, which is set to come into effect in 2024. California’s AADC is the first privacy-by-design law in the United States and is based on the UK’s AADC. California AADC would require tech companies to put in place more protections to keep children safe online, including making sites more user-centric and transparent. The law also proposes raising the age threshold above 13 years, which is what the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) currently stipulates. NetChoice’s contention is that companies should not be obligated to “act as roving Internet censors at the state’s behest”.