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Children's privacy is so sensitive that all it took for kids game Mobbles to pre-emptively pull its app last December was a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission by a privacy group. Four months later, the app, which had been accused of collecting e-mail addresses without parental permission, has yet to return. Mobbles' disappearance could have something to do with the FTC’s comprehensive overhaul of privacy rules affecting digital companies targeting kids, which will go into effect July 1. Just what exactly those changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) are is anybody’s guess. The FTC promises to clarify the updates in the form of FAQs "sometime this month," leaving companies with only 10 weeks to get in line.

That's why the Interactive Advertising Bureau filed a request with the FTC to delay implementation by six months. "It’s a complete makeover and that will take time," said Mike Zaneis, the IAB’s svp, general counsel. Even if the FTC grants the extra time, the digital kids market undoubtably will be changed. The new regulations could cause some sites and apps to drastically reduce functionality or interactivity, force others behind paywalls or drive some right out of business.

Battling rogue hackers and digital spies — it’s precisely the sort of cutting-edge challenge that typically confounds Congress. But the cybersecurity debate about to begin in the House this week is merely a more modern take on an old political fight: a classic lobbying battle set against the backdrop of a post-Sept. 11 struggle between privacy and security.

Virtually all of Washington believes the government and industry should exchange data about new cyberthreats — not unlike regulators in the not-too-distant past who shared a desire to find new methods of preventing terrorism. In both debates, however, it’s always been about the details. And on cybersecurity, Congress, the White House, private companies and interest groups just don’t see eye to eye. Each side is lobbying hard to shape the final product as regulators realize it’s difficult to safeguard civil liberties while thwarting the sort of attacks that might darken a city or disrupt Wall Street trading.

Thirty years ago, the Macintosh was a new product, and the Internet was the little-known realm of the federal government and academia. That’s when 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — the guiding law that still defines and governs cybercrimes — was born.

In dealing with computer-related wrongdoing in 2013, though, there are few who believe the law remains adequate, fair or modern enough to apply. But if there’s broad agreement that the CFAA sorely needs an update, dueling draft bills in the House illustrate dramatic differences among possible directions to go — stricter, looser or a combination. The Justice Department and some in Congress, alarmed by a rise in major cybersecurity crimes, want stiffer penalties for hacking. That effort, though, faces fierce pushback from a coalition of Internet activists and civil rights groups who want to ease or remove certain types of prosecutions and lighten penalties. CFAA reform was already looming, but the suicide of 26-year-old Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz in January helped galvanize groups to change the law so that not all hacking is considered the same and to make penalties less draconian in some cases. Swartz killed himself as he faced up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine after prosecutors alleged he stole more than 4 million documents from the JSTOR database of academic research papers at MIT.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should ensure that Sprint and T-Mobile are able to buy the rights to wireless frequencies, the Justice Department argued. The department's Antitrust Division argued that ensuring smaller carriers have access to spectrum — the airwaves that carry all mobile data traffic — is critical for promoting competition and keeping cellphone service prices down.

Sprint and T-Mobile operate nationwide networks but are much smaller than industry leaders Verizon and AT&T. The Justice Department warned that AT&T and Verizon might buy up the spectrum not to use for their customers, but to choke off their competitors' access to the vital resource. There are only a limited number of frequencies capable of carrying cellular signals. "A large incumbent may benefit from acquiring spectrum even if its uses of the spectrum are not the most efficient if that acquisition helps preserve high prices," the department wrote in the document, which was signed by division chief William Baer. The Justice Department argued that unless there is compelling evidence that one of the large carriers is already using all of its existing spectrum efficiently, the public would benefit the most from allowing one of the smaller carriers to buy the rights to the frequencies.