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Parental Control Software Datamines Kids' Online Conversations
An AP report reveals that web-monitoring software from Sentry and FamilySafe, both developed by EchoMetrix Inc., is harvesting data from kids' online chats, trying to determine their opinions on games, movies, and music. The data is then sold to other companies for advertising purposes.
"In June, EchoMetrix unveiled a separate data-mining service called Pulse that taps into the data gathered by Sentry software to give businesses a glimpse of youth chatter online. While other services read publicly available teen chatter, Pulse also can read private chats. It gathers information from instant messages, blogs, social networking sites, forums and chat rooms. ... Parents who don't want the company to share their child's information to businesses can check a box to opt out. But that option can be found only by visiting the company's Web site, accessible through a control panel that appears after the program has been installed. It was not in the agreement contained in the Sentry Total Home Protection program The Associated Press downloaded and installed Friday."
Long live the guardians !!
Yup, I think I do, yesss preciousss. Filthy nasssty antiprivacccccy dataminersessss! OUR precioussss!
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
When you delegate your parental responsibilities.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Part of me wants to give a big Nelson ha-ha to the overprotective parents who install this crap trying to save their children from the eeeevil people on the Internet. Is it really any surprise that the corporations most interested in "protecting" your children are those who have figured out a way to exploit them?
Seriously. EULA or not, this is invading the children privacies. There must be a law against this.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
How many more programs are there that do the same?
I never liked to have programs running in the background... this is just another reason not to install any program at all that wants to start up when I turn the computer on.
Privacy... what's that?
Can someone just make sure that these freaks are locked away for a decade or two please? Any invasion of privacy as extreme as this surely is illegal???
In the US, children have special privacy protections afforded by law. It involves things like "opt-in" and parental consent.
http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm
IANAL, but I have worked on a number of projects which had to comply. Based on what is said here, this seems in flagrant violation. Somebody call the cops.
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Early results indicate that kids are pre-occupied with gayness (in an unfocussed and confused way), wedgies, noogies and the smell of poo.
Further analysis reveals that Disney actors are hot, teachers aren't and swimming pools are responsible for most diseases.
Any company data-mining this further are welcome to try. There are great truths to be found within, I'm sure.
FamilySafe: Protecting your kids, but not from us!
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Children are not the only people who use these blockers. Adults use them too. Anyone who sits at that computer while the blocker is enabled is going to be logged. Some adults even put it on even if they don't have children to police their own surfing if they have an addiction.
Of course the kids have privacy rights, but as minors cannot exercise these which the parents/guardians have a fiduciary duty to exercise. The parents doubtless click agreement when the software is installed.
The real problem is that parents are scared into agreement by media overhyping low probability events and omitting crucial explanations / causes. So the parents hear: "Your kids could be another Columbine or victim" to sell whatever schlock they're peddling. Non-sequitur but the data is obscured.
A bigger question is why people like being scared. Adrenline rush? Most TV news runs that way. I never understood the popularity of horror flicks.
Cue lawsuits as the wife starts getting targeted advertisements for 'hot sluts in your area' due to the husbands chatting habits...
such data is especially crucial to world perce
analyze and eliminate terrorist
a new kind of child predator has reared its head.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
...if you use Microsoft Windows. The Microsoft ecosystem has always been a haven for unscrupulous usurpers of the desktop for profit, and user-experience, business ethics, and software quality be damned.
The reason malware and adware is so prevalent on that platform is that their ilk have never been discouraged by Microsoft. In fact, quite the opposite. As long as it profits the vendor or Microsoft, everything is permitted.
The only guideline for Windows software appears to be that the software programmer must be the same person as the designer, must be fresh out of college, must have an undeveloped sense of aesthetics, and must be replaceable by some other fresh graduate who will work for half the salary.
A love of layered tabs also helps.
Well I don't know about America but in the EU this would certainly be illegal I think you wouldn't even have to file a civil suit they would just be prosecuted
I'm not so sure. If the data is not personally identifiable, I don't think it violates the European Union Privacy Directive.
Note that the information is data-mined for advertising information (finding out what kids are interested in), not for ad targetting (send an ad for "High School Musical IV" to kids talking about "Guitar Hero").
One thing I always tell people is that people who won't show you the source code to their software have something to hide. It's almost certain their software is doing something that benefits themselves at your expense. Sovereignty over your own possessions requires that you insist on visible source code, even if you can't understand it yourself.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
In the US, children have special privacy protections afforded by law. It involves things like "opt-in" and parental consent.
http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm
IANAL, but I have worked on a number of projects which had to comply. Based on what is said here, this seems in flagrant violation. Somebody call the cops.
Nope.
"The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and Rule apply to individually identifiable information about a child"
As long as they're only data mining the information on what the kids are interested in, and not saving which child was interested in what, they're apparently not violating the COPPA law.
Which is not to say that what they're doing is right, of course.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"Skilled developer, designer and mentor with over 15 years of industry experience. Focus on high-quality reusable code, and designs that stand the test of time. Also an innovator and source of new ideas who can push them forward in a way that's greeted positively by the entire organization. A rare blend of good communication skills and technical excellence. "
You forgot to add "modest" to that list.
Oh , wait...
You know those e-mail filters where you have to solve a CAPTCHA when you send somebody an e-mail? With some of those, when you fill out the CAPTCHA, you get e-mails a couple of days/weeks later asking you if you want to sign up for their service - so they are trying to sell an anti-spam product by sending spam. Actually I also got some real spam (=randomly picked addresses) advertising these services, too. Same principle ...
I decided long ago, to never have kids. Kids aren't worth it, and this is a horrible world to raise kids in. Every time Slashdot has something on the subject of kids, its some horrible and obscene shit that makes me wish I was never born. This company should have the book thrown at them. So do the parents.
What the fuck are parents thinking? Seriously.
My wife and I view our responsibility as parents as very basic:
1) Provide basic necessities an enjoyments of life (emphasis on necessities)
2) Provide love and a feeling of trust and safety in the home
3) Teach them a strong sense of identity and self-worth
4) Teach our kids what choices are, how to recognize good from bad choices, and how to accept the consequences of you actions
For computers, here's our strategy:
1) Place computers in a open public place (including our own)
2) Teach them that computers are a tool and how people use it for good and bad
3) Openly discuss what acceptable and unacceptable behavior with computers/games are
4) Limit time spent on computer
5) As much as possible, don't create double standards
6) Use OpenDNS and block certain sites depending on their age
We feel parental technology should be used to reinforce what you're already teaching, not as a substitute.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Why not use Green Dam instead? It's freely available... also prevents your children from becoming revoluzzers!
mod this fucker UP!
I'd like to say that this would be a blow to filtering, but I know it won't be - the average person doesn't even know what "datamining" is, never mind the average parent. As it has been said above - most parents would probably agree to sign away all their child(ren)'s privacy and rights, as long as there was no chance of them accidentally glimpsing anything sexual in nature, and it won't matter to them - the majority don't give their children rights or privacy anyway, so why should they care if it's a company doing the same thing as them? They wouldn't be able to reproach the companies without looking like hypocrites.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
No exceptions. It's morally wrong, and only "required" if you're an unfit parent that does not have the combination of true respect and ability to educate.
Also it is for those sick twisted minds, who somehow got the idea that sex & co. would somehow be bad and even hurt children. Something that makes absolutely no sense, if you so much as think about if for more than ten seconds.
It's really rather sad. Parents giving their unfitness and diseases to their poor children, who then continue to infect others.
Only education can cure that. Social education and education about how to avoid false social conditioning.
But unfortunately, the government works -- on a higher level -- in the same unfit and sick way.
Basically, we're fucked. :/
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Well, the other part of you will cry in terror, when those children are going to become leaders of the world, controlling your life too. (Ok, not really leaders, because they never learned to be anything else than doormats. :/)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
FTA:"We never know the name of the kid -- it's bobby37 on the house computer"
How many Bobby's live in the house? And what info do they ask for when you register the software? Name, address, phone, etc. Crap, there's a good chance that the computer's named "Johnson Family Laptop"
They know the names, and they save the registration info. I would further guess that they provide data by location to these companies as well. So they know that Bobby37 is on the computer at 1400 Main St whose parents are Don and Judy Johnson, but they don't know the name of the kid? Even with complicated relationships (step-parents, divorces, etc.), Bobby Johnson is a pretty good bet.
They will be sued, and they will lose this one, if they don't get criminally prosecuted first. They're not doing well financially, discovery alone should probably cost enough to bankrupt them.
This sentence no verb.
How long will it take for some smart kids to reverse the gun and start blackmailing their parents?
I recently received an email from Comcast that states that they are changing their so-called "Privacy Policy" to include data gathering from all of their internet service customers.
The problem (besides the obvious)?
The "opt-out" option doesn't work.
A couple of the 3rd party partners flat out refuse to allow opting out, and the rest ALL require you to keep a "blank cookie" on your machine to opt-out. The problem is that the vast majority of sites you visit don't work unless you allow a new cookie (including slashdot, it appears).
Here da links..Yeah, you have to dig a little as the obfuscation is pretty heavy-handed.
"Comcast may work with Comcast affiliates and trusted partners to provide tailored content and advertising based on non-personally identifiable information, but you may choose to opt-out of tailored advertising as described more fully in the Privacy Policy and FAQs."
http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?Guid=dfcbf43e-91b2-4444-a04d-8d7c68fcb356
The list:
http://www.comcast.net/privacy/2009-10/#partners
Comcast is NOT in the business of providing Internet service, they are in the business of piping advertising to target demographics as well as defining those demographics.
One of the scariest parts of this is that Yahoo is on the list, which means MICROSOFT is on the list...joy.
Yes, I see your point. You may be right. At least, it looks like the act specifically defines personal information as including an "identifier" that, while defined broadly, wouldn't cover aggregate statistical information culled from these raw data streams.
I wonder if there still isn't a COPPA angle to prosecute, for some enterprising DA.
If EchoMetrix is like most American marketing data firms, they have no safeguards or controls, so raw data may be going to partners, subcontractors, "affiliates," etc. That could constitute a disclosure, with the caveat:
"...except where such information is provided to a person other than the operator who provides support for the internal operations of the website and does not disclose or use that information for any other purpose..."
Consider, too, that the rules are quite broad. For instance, if you simply track users with an "anonymous" ID in a cookie, and the rest of the data stream could ever conceivably include something identifying (i.e. the child identifying themselves accidentally), then your data is covered under the act. If you are thinking this means sites aimed at children effectively cannot use cookies, you are correct - this is the net effect of the law, AFAIK.
I doubt the parent's use of "net nanny" style software constitutes the necessary consent to disclose.
But who knows. At any rate, I think I stand corrected. This looks like a reach at best.
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As long as they're only data mining the information on what the kids are interested in, and not saving which child was interested in what, they're apparently not violating the COPPA law.
However, what qualifies as 'individually identifiable' may be a lot broader than it first appears. Remember the recent case of correlating imdb ratings with presumably anonymous netflix rental data used for their recommendation contest to figure out what other movies the imdb users had rented but had not rated? There could easily be "in the bigger picture" privacy leaks like that going on here too.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
"We never know the name of the kid -- it's bobby37 on the house computer," Greene said.
Dear God, won't someone think of the marketers?
Is it really any surprise that the corporations most interested in "protecting" your children are those who have figured out a way to exploit them?
No, it is not.
It definitely isn't covered if the child being monitored has a conversation with a friend who isn't being monitored, and the monitoring firm keeps a log of the whole conversation.