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On February 5, 2026, Governor Henry McMaster signed into law South Carolina's Age-Appropriate Code Design Act. South Carolina joins California, Maryland and Vermont in enacting an Age Appropriate Code Design Act that seeks to regulate website design and advertising that appeals specifically to Minors.
The statute applies to online services that conduct business in South Carolina who are “reasonably likely to be accessed” by minors and meet specified revenue or data-processing thresholds-including annual gross revenues exceeding $25 million, processing personal data of 50,000 or more consumers, or deriving at least 50% of revenue from data sales.
South Carolina's act targets website design elements that encourage excessive engagement by minors, including the following specific features:
- infinite scroll,
- auto-playing videos,
- gamification mechanics,
- visible engagement metrics,
- notifications,
- in-game purchases,
- and appearance-altering filters.
Websites that offer any of these covered features, and either know minors are visiting or contain websites defined under COPPA to target minors must disable these features by default and offer easy to use controls that enable parents to monitor and restrict their child's usage of the website. The statute also prohibits targeted advertising to minors, restricts precise geolocation data collection, and bans “dark patterns,” or user interfaces designed to subvert user autonomy.
The South Carolina Attorney General holds exclusive enforcement authority, with covered services facing treble damages for violations, and where the conduct is found to be willful and wanton, the corporations directors and officers can be found personally liable. Dark pattern usage triggers additional exposure under the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act. To ensure compliance, Companies must submit annual public reports prepared by independent auditors detailing design features, data practices, and age verification methods. While this statute may ultimately be challenged on first amendment grounds, companies should not delay compliance. Recommended steps include conducting a threshold analysis, auditing design features against restricted elements, implementing default privacy settings and parental controls for known minors, revising data practices to meet minimization requirements, eliminating targeted advertising and dark patterns, and engaging auditors for the July 1 reporting deadline. Given the immediate effective date and treble damages exposure, affected companies should prioritize compliance.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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