The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is revising the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) to include guidelines related to parental permission for children using certain mobile apps, USA Today reports.

The changes will include specific rules to protect children using internet-connected mobile devices.

"We want to make it crystal clear, to app developers and to others in this new mobile space, that we believe the protection under COPPA is not platform specific. If you can't do it online, you can't do it in an app," FTC consumer protection bureau director David Vladeck is quoted as saying in USA Today.

The FTC’s first successful case against a company violating COPPA  via mobile apps took place in August when it fined app developer W3 Innovations US$50,000 for illegally collecting and disclosing personal information from several thousand children under the age of 13.

W3 Innovations – which trades as Broken Thumbs Apps and develops games and information sharing apps for iPhone and iPod Touch – was found to have breached the rule that “requires parental notice and consent before collecting children’s personal information online, whether through a website or a mobile app,” according to FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz.

The FTC found more than 50,000 copies of W3 Innovations’ apps were downloaded from the “Games-Kids” section of Apple’s App Store.

The apps involved encourage users to email their comments, which the FTC alleged were used to create an email database. It also said users could publicly post personal data on message boards within the app.