The Kids Are Not Alright: How COPPA Failed Children in the Age of AI

It's 11:47 PM on a Tuesday. A 12-year-old in suburban Ohio — let's call her Maya — is in bed with her phone, talking to her AI companion. She's been doing this for four months. The AI knows her favorite songs, her fight with her best friend last week, the name of the boy she likes, and the fact that she sometimes feels like no one at school understands her. Maya thinks this conversation is private. She thinks it disappears. It doesn't. Every message is stored on servers in California. The content is used to train engagement models. Her emotional patterns — when she's lonely, when she's anxious, what topics keep her talking past midnight — are valuable signals that make the AI better at keeping her, and kids like her, hooked. Nobody told Maya's parents. Nobody asked. COPPA: A 1998 Law Governing 2026 AI The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was signed by President Clinton on October 21, 1998. The web that existed then: dial-up connections, GeoCities pages, early portal sites. The