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Amazon Calls Children's Privacy Complaint Groundless
theodp writes "Eleven groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Junkbusters, filed a complaint with the FTC, asking that it investigate Amazon for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. An Amazon spokesman called the complaint groundless because "Amazon.com is not a site directed at children." So what was the deal with those Amazon Press Releases for the Harry Potter Magical Candy Contest For Children Ages 6 to 13, Toy Quest Toy Design Contest For Kids 12 And Under, and the Be a Poet Contest For All Kids 12 and Under?"
Update: 04/23 23:54 GMT by T :theodp writes with an update from Ad Age which says that Amazon has "announced it has removed children's identifying information from its Web sites."
...but it's hard to fault Amazon too harshly. If you let 12 year-olds type in any form, they have the opportunity to reveal personal information. You can either completely deprive them of keyboard input, or you can attempt to screen for mistakes. I would err to the side of empowering them, and keep a sharp lookout for infractions.
A system that might be helpful (though it would detract from the number of participants) would be to require that kids typing on forms be sponsored by an adult (proven with at least a non-charged credit card number) and that adult would then receive copies of all the text the child typed at an e-mail address of choice. This would give parents the opportunity to monitor what data had got out, and shift the responsibility for properly screening it onto their shoulders, without requiring them to regularly comb through Amazon to see what had been posted.
Of course the deeper social issue of using the Internet as a babysitter and requiring that the rest of the world baby-proof the information universe is certainly worth addressing.
Not a lot of sense closing the barn door, after the horse is gone...
From the zdnet article: Amazon is letting children 12 years old and younger post reviews of toy products without their parents' consent
Maybe I'm naive, but I have to ask, "How do you enforce this?"
The poster above suggests using a credit card as proof of age, but still,
1) if the cc is not being charged, how is the parent to know that it is being used for ID?
2) How is Amazon to know that the cc is or isn't being used with parent's consent?
SCO to Hell
So the article suggest that they company should ask for peoples ages. Now this I can see as a deterrant but if a child find that putting in under 13 redirects them to disney.com what is to stop then just signing up again and changing their age?
What I'm basically trying to say that the parents should be monitoring what their kids are doing. Treat the internet as the same the street. Don't talk to strangers or give out personal information
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
There is a certain amount of responsibility on the parents of said young children to know what they are doing and where they are going on the Internet. Sadly many parents are so ignorant about all this stuff that they don't have the know how to even monitor what their children do online. My daughter (who's currently in the works) is going to be supervised... and I'll likely set up a proxy of some sort so I can bust her later if she goes to playgirl.com ;)
I'm just sick of people blaming their failure as a parent on someone else.
Parents should be responsible indeed. Even when your kids shoot up their highschool. If parents (and yes, I *am* a parent) had to take responsibility for their kids actions, and that meant consequences for their kids actions, parents would pay a LOT more attention and be a LOT more involved.
whenever bad laws get applied to entities with money. This is usually the only way the laws get struck down or narrowed by the courts.
Why is this law bad? Because lawmakers can't seem to understand what can and can't be legislated. This is another law that makes about as much sense as the "evil bit" joke RFC. Just because it's a good idea to prevent something doesn't mean you can. It would be good to keep childern from playing in the streets as well, but you won't see millions spent on "you must be this tall to enter" signs.
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
Come on...drive down a street, any street, and open a mailbox. You'll get the last name. Watch the house. You'll see if there are kids. If you listen, you'll hear the parents call out their kid's names.
If someone is a pervert, being armed with a name and a city/state isn't going to make them do something. They're going to do something because they're a pervert, and they'll be able to get a name with no problem regardless. Come on.
I think the point here is that they had this stuff come out for kids, and then turned around and said that they're not necessarily a kid-oriented site. It may be after the fact, but it's still not the Right Thing to put up (say) fluffy bunnies and deny you do it.
This sig no verb.
A good option would be to make the parent filling out the consent form charge $10 toward a gift certificate they can spend however they like, but that would appear on the credit card statement as a charge to "Amazon child permission systems." Or some other such that would raise the red flag. Amazon could give away some cutesy little free games (like Frogapult) to entice the children to get their parents to bother signing them up.
I'd also include (as suggested above) the option of letting the parent pre-screen the childs posts. Essentially, at the address selected they would receive a webform that looked like a meta-moderator box, with approve, and disapprove for all the child's pending entries, and a submit button at the bottom.
This system would be imperfect of course, but the goal of making the parents the screeners is essential.
When children are under 12, views of what is appropriate vary wildly. Where I wouldn't mind my (hypothetical) 12 year old talking about a problem s/he had with a Gameboy and how helpful they were at the Victorville Walmart in getting it replaced. Others might think this is just the clue that a predator would need to know the child is sufficiently local to be worth pursuing. It's all a judgement call, that no "Offical Amazon Screener" will be able to get right with sufficient perfection to adequately shield their company from the kind of liability that would ensue if a captured stalker/abductor tells 60 minutes that he used little children's posts to track them down.
Maybe I'm naive, but I have to ask, "How do you enforce this?"
More importantly - why should I care?
If Amazon had a "pedophile" section - that might bother me. Or if there were a chat room on Amazon where people might actually be able to interact with an unsupervised 12 year old... then I might see how that is bad.
But if a kid is allowed to post up a review... I'm not seeing why the hell that matters - other than the review might suck. Even then, 12 is still pretty mature - 5 year olds... maybe even 7 year olds - but 12? Hell, that is middle school! Those are young adults.
But the truth of the matter - if you really wanted to get Amazon to care about kids on the site - make it clear to them that you would have bought the product, but you didn't because you saw that a 12 year old reviewed the product and was *obviously* unsupervised - therefore you went and bought the product elsewhere.
Then Amazon will have reason to care.
Even then, I don't see why they should have to care why some people are just insanely uptight and apparently have a lot of free time on their hands.
I would also think that a larger problem isn't the kids posting reviews, but actually buying crap.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Isn't Toys-R-Us for PARENTS? Kids don't buy toys, Parents buy toys.
Maybe it's just me, but I've been on the Internet since 1994, and I've seen the ever amounting increase of spam, both porn and otherwise, and lovely porn pop-up ads. Now, I use Mozilla as my browser of choice, but my sister doesn't like it for some reason and is adamant on using Internet Explorer and all of its wonderful quirks. Quite a few times I've had to come over and shut down Internet Explorer 'cause my sister was being absolutely flooded with non-stop gay porn ads.
Between the non-stop porn, the non-stop spam, and especially the mix of the two, I would never, I repeat *NEVER*, let any child of mine access the Internet under the age of 16. I don't care how much he/she/they would bitch and moan, they ain't getting on, it's just *that* simple.
My cousins weren't allowed to watch television until they were 10 and I see that had a positive influence on them. I plan on following the set trend by my relatives and not allow my child(ren) (should I ever have any) to access the Internet, supervised or not. Just way too much crap out there. Supervising them can only do so much to protect them from stuff, the only foolproof method is to ban it altogether.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
The difference is that there are likely (or at least potentially) people on any street in America.
People who will see you opening the mailbox that isn't yours, people who will see you "watching the house". These aren't foolproof, but they're at least possible.
Conversely, there isn't anyone watching you troll the Amazon boards looking for kids giving away information.
To clarify: were you saying COPPA is a bad thing?
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
How about we don't hold people (or companies) responsible for things they can't control? People lie. Kids lie. It is impossible for Amazon to prevent children from posting reviews (or doing anything else). Each parent should be responsible for their own kids' behavior. Not Amazon, McDonalds, Microsoft, Michael Jordan, or anyone else.
A modern day witchhunt.
Those releases the submitter cited are for the parents. Just because something is about kids doesn't mean it's for kids. I'm quite sure the target audience for the diaper ads in Parents magazine doesn't include my infant son.
But surely the submitter will go to heaven, for not only has he submitted a story about the abuses perpetuated on the common man by a large entity (Microsoft, Amazon, US government), he added his own attack to the submission. Well done, faithful servant. Perhaps you can also dig up some incriminating press releases at Microsoft. Better yet, attack the evil entities where it hurts...the wallet! Did you know that OSDN is "the No. 1 network for delivering visitors who have shopped for or purchased software online in the past 6 months"? Go get 'em tiger! Take down OSDN and then post your deeds here...errr...well...I'm sure we'll hear about them.
Power to the people!
By saying a business is targeting children as a market, you are saying that:
1)The business is expecting children to go to the location of that business,
or
2)Go where that business's product is located,
and
3)Purchase that product or service in response to their advertising campaign.
Now tell me: How many 10 year olds have credit cards? Amazon targets the people who are legally able to have their own credit card - ADULTS! Ok maybe 15-17 year olds get copies in their parents' names, but still...
And in response to this quote:
"The fact is that parents give their kids the means to pay for things. When a parent does that, they're in effect giving their consent to their child interacting with a Web site."
This is absolute bullshit. Posession of a credit card has nothing to do with the act of using a website. By applying that quote to ALL websites, does it then imply that parents are giving consent to their children to use pr0n sites simply because they gave their kids their credit card info? If that's the case, then those parents should be the ones accused of endangering children, not Amazon. But let's put that aside for a moment, because that is just a hypothetical.
I don't need a credit card to post to most blogs, message boards, or guest books - which is basically what Amazon's customer review feature is. If this is truly about children giving out personal information, any 6 year old that knows his/her name and address can do the same thing anywhere else.
This is simply another case of parents wanting society to raise their children for them.
I agree, with one addition. The adult "releases" the information.
No, it is the parents job to protect their children, not the rest of the world's. If a parent is going to sit a child in front of a computer and give them internet access that they can't trust to use responcibly, than anything that happens is the parents own fault and only the parents fault, not the website that the kid wondered onto that doesn't even have a solid way of knowing the age of the user.
What?! that $1000 computer I bought can't even babysit?! What's the point!
Seriously, I've thought this ever since people were upset kids were watching too much violence on TV or in computer games or seeing porn on the Internet. It's not technology's job to keep children safe (I guess when there are cyborgs having children it might be a different story...)
HTTP Status 418
Before trying to summarize the article, try reading it. It is NOT about Amazon getting the Child's information, it is about the stupid-assed kids who post their personal address in REVIEWS OF PRODUCTS. If a kid is smart enough to post reviews, but dumb enough to put his friggin address there, maybe natural selection will kick in and do it's job (with the help of some psycho-maniacs, of course).
So what was the deal with those Amazon Press Releases for the Harry Potter Magical Candy Contest For Children Ages 6 to 13...
The site is not targeted at children, simply because children do not have credit cards!! These press releases are targeted at the adults to purchase these neat toys for their kids. Duh!
What is it with /.ers hating Amazon? I shop Amazon on a daily basis, and think of them as the greatest web page ever created. Whatever you've got against them, get over it. It's getting kind of old.
Speaking as a parent, I agree with you, but there's something you need to consider. A parent cannot look over their child's shoulder during every waking hour. That's why parents want technology to help them. For instance, the ability to block certain channels or certain content (by rating) on TV. This prevents parents from having to sit in the room while their child is watching TV to make sure they don't change the channel to something inappropriate. For computer games, many parents just want stores to avoid selling games with certain ratings to children. With the internet, some parents want content filtering systems that help control what their child has access to. Everything I've mentioned is already available because parents have asked for it. So in that respect, technology CAN play a role in keeping children safe.
Having said that, I feel that (based on the article) Amazon is not really in the wrong. They actively attempt to protect children by removing personal information. If they are going to be required to do some sort of credit card lookup before letting people post reviews, etc, then we'd all better look out for the ripple effect. I like Slashdot, but I sure as heck am not going to provide my credit card number just so I can type this post.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
A parent can work to instill their values in the child to the point where they do not NEED to look over their child's shoulder every waking hour. My parents managed quite well, and I didn't stray very far from what they taught me until I was in college and adult enough to make my own choices. I hope that I can do as well with my son.
I have little sympathy for the point of view that as a parent you don't want to spend your time watching TV with your children, you don't want to be around when they're surfing the net, etc. There are plenty of simple straightforward ways to be present enough to reinforce your values with your children (computers and TVs go only in the public areas of the house, for one big example). If you think your child needs a nanny to make sure they're where they belong, then you better be that nanny, or hire someone who can be one, instead of fooling yourself that they aren't going to be smart enough to foil whatever technological blocks you put in their way.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Part of the problem is making those restrictions apply well beyond reasonable bounds because parents don't want to have to watch their children all the time. As a result a 16 year-old can drive and have sex (in most states) but cannot: buy an "M" rated videogame, watch an "R" or "NC-17" rated film, purchase pornography or most sexual devices. It's all too common to set age restrictions on minors designed to protect them, but go overboard on them.
Likewise as much as parents want to protect and benefit their children it is only right and acceptable for them to go so far. Minors have absolutely no political power, but frequently things are done to them "for their own good". At a certain point parents don't have the right to control their children even if they are below the age of majority.