Slashdot Mirror
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.
Perhaps it was the virus....
Amazon Tech: "We just can't get rid of this damn thing"
All those releases were dated for late 1999. The Children's Protection Act wasn't in place until 2001. Whoever submitted this article sure went to a lot of trouble to make Amazon look hypocritical.
And what about "The story of ping"?
Ages 4-8.
Not a lot of sense closing the barn door, after the horse is gone...
Amazon.com can get out of this just by using their normal business strategy. Patent protecting children online. Then they can counter-sue all these groups for violating the patent.
I hope Bezos doesn't read slashdot, I don't want to give him any ideas.
Jason
ProfQuotes
eBay is also being targetted by the same complaints and investigation.
Why do I h8 apple?
Riiight...and TRU isn't aimed at kids at all.
"Toysrus.com
Founded in 1998, Toysrus.com really gained momentum when it formed an alliance with Amazon.com in 2000. The site became an online retailing success story by more than tripling its sales and number of orders from the prior year and by giving guests a terrific online toy-buying experience. Since that time, Toysrus.com and Amazon.com have introduced two additional online shopping experiences with the launch of Babiesrus.com and Imaginarium.com."
Amazon is letting children 12 years old and younger post reviews of toy products without their parents' consent.
How dare they allow my little angels to post a toy review without my express consent! I shudder to think of how many children will have their innocence corrupted because they are exposed to speech that has not been censored by a vigilant adult.
Even worse, they may expose themselves to predators online if they are allowed to post without parental approval. You know: "My name is Jimmy and I think this toy is real neat and I live with my parents in the big red house on the corner of Mulberry Street and the back door is unlocked." That kind of thing. Perhaps we should block our children from accessing websites altogether: it's a dangerous world out there.
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.
The CNET article links to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 on the FTC site.
One can ask for dob, but I don't see how you can validate it. How do you prove that the dob is not false.
:-)
You can ask three questions (that adults can answer), just like at the beginning of Leisure Suite Larry
A dingo ate my sig...
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.
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.
there were actually more than three questions... they started out with stuff that only a baby boomer would know (like "what was richard nixon's dog's name?") and got progressively more current until your age range could be estimated.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
I dunno about all fives, but I use 888-88-8888 as a fake SSN. It's coded into some (maybe more than some) systems as "this person doesn't have an SSN". I dunno why all 8's, and not all 9's or 1's or something. *shrug*
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my