On March 3, 2026, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) announced that it reached a $1.1 million settlement with 2080 Media, Inc., a youth sports media company doing business as PlayOn Sports (“PlayOn Sports”), for failing to provide users with adequate methods to opt-out of the sharing and sale of their personal information in violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act. The CPPA emphasized that this decision is the first to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.
According to the CPPA, PlayOn Sports operates the GoFan platform that is used by schools in California and across the country to sell digital tickets for various high school activities, including sporting events, theater performances, and school dances. The platform also enables users, including students, to stream sporting events and look up statistics on teams and players. According to the CPPA’s decision, GoFan users were forced to “agree” to the use of tracking technologies before they could access their digital tickets or view PlayOn Sport websites – tracking technologies that allowed third parties to collect users’ personal information for the purpose of delivering targeted advertisements. The CPPA determined that PlayOn Sports violated California’s privacy law by failing to provide its own method for consumers to opt-out of information sharing and, instead, directed users to opt-out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance. The CPPA also found that the company failed to recognize opt-out preference signals (settings that allow consumers to transmit their opt-out requests across every website they visit without having to select separate opt-out links) and failed to provide users with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.
According to the Stipulated Final Order, in addition to the payment of the administrative fine, the CPPA Board ordered PlayOn Sports to implement opt-out methods that comply with California’s privacy law. The company was also ordered to conduct risk assessments and evaluate the notices and disclosures on its platform to ensure that they are easy for all users to read and understand after taking into consideration the age of the intended audience.