Growing up fast: An update on the global regulation of children's dat…

Global regulators are simultaneously tightening child data protection through divergent rules: the EU is layering DSA enforcement with proposed under-13 social media bans and the Digital Fairness Act; the US federal government updated COPPA while individual states impose conflicting age-design codes; the UK is phasing in Online Safety Act fines and planning under-16 social media restrictions. Companies now face a fragmented compliance landscape where the same product requires different implementations across jurisdictions. You now need four different compliance versions of the same product: one for the EU (DSA + age verification + dark patterns), one for each major US state (Maryland, California, Texas, Utah rules don't align), one for the UK (under-16 ban coming), and one for everywhere else. Build compliance infrastructure now or your product stops working in chunks of your market this year.