A Trail of Clicks, Culminating In Conflict

NotSanguine writes "Technology companies are up in arms about the FTC's pending rules change which would require explicit parental permission to allow websites to gather a wide range of data on children 13 and under. From the NYT Article: '"If adopted, the effect of these new rules would be to slow the deployment of applications that provide tremendous benefits to children, and to slow the economic growth and job creation generated by the app economy," Catherine A. Novelli, vice president of worldwide government affairs at Apple, wrote in comments to the agency (PDF).' But would that be a bad thing? As reported in the Times last week, Matt Richtel writes, 'There is a widespread belief among teachers that students' constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans and ability to persevere in the face of challenging tasks, according to two surveys of teachers being released on Thursday.' So, will the new FTC rules end up helping children (by enhancing their privacy and, if industry pundits are right, reducing the amount of content available online for children — thus enhancing their attention spans), or will the negative effects on corporations have as deleterious an effect on the economy as to measurably reduce the quality of education?"

Comments

"JOB CREATION, GENERATED BY THE APP ECONOMY"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Now I KNOW the objection is spurious.

Re:"JOB CREATION, GENERATED BY THE APP ECONOMY"

[DiamondGeezer]

tl;dr

My children are not to be profited on

[Jailbrekr]

Damn rights you need my explicit permission to gather data on my children, and if you object to this, then you are not only the problem you are a parasite who is in need of extermination.

Stay away from my children you greedy soul-less fucks.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop at the children? I think EVERYBODY ought to have this right. At least if it's enforced for children we can all sign up as 8-year-olds, and experience a little privacy on the net for a change.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[Anonymous Coward]

What about porn though?

Purchases that require a "legal contract"?

etc?

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[VortexCortex]

Stay away from my children you greedy soul-less fucks.

Your child needs to stop clicking the "yes I am over 13" button on my game's web forums... You know, because unless we do some SERIOUS fucking data gathering by some "trusted" 3rd party, I won't be able to tell if your kid is lying or not.

If you ever actually hear what your kids say when you're not around, then you'd be calling them the soul-less fucks.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[jythie]

But... but... they might make less money then, which slows their development! How dare you protect your children from their 'useful apps'! They have their own children to feed! Or at least boats to buy.....

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[jythie]

Two online identities... one for general use, one for cases where you need to be an adult....

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[LordLucless]

Fine. Just don't start bitching when your children are excluded from the internet.

Seriously, you expect every website to add the infrastructure for handling and verifying written permission before they record your child's IP address? Yeah right. They'll add a little tickbox to their signup page, requiring the user to confirm they're over the age of 13 before they can use the service. And if your children lie and do it anyway, hell, the way the US is going, that'll probably be a federal hacking offence and they'll get carted off to juvie for a spell.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[Anonymous Coward]

+999999999999999999999999

If someone is to profit from anyone's browsing habits on the internet, not matter how obfuscated, let that person be the one that's doing the browsing.

Catherine A. Novelli and her ilk are scum, you don't need usage data to make better products, you want it so you can sell it. You want to know if your software is any good? Open a forum, you'll have people voluntarily telling you how crap your software is!

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[ti-85]

Generally speaking — Puppies, like small children, the elderly, and really most people:

Rotten until proven otherwise.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[marcello_dl]

Interesting metric you have for allowing non consensual acquisition of data, where the bad behavior of the "victim" has any relevance. I catch you cheating on your wife, I am entitled to snap a pic and blackmail you, for that same metric.

Re:My children are not to be profited on

[Anonymous Coward]

If the law prevents them collecting data on children who click the "I'm under 13" button, the law would be good in principle but worthless in practice, because children have all learnt that you have to lie about your age to get access to online services. OTOH, if the companies are liable if the kids lie, that would effectively kill small developers in the state. The only solution would be to apply those privacy rules to everyone, which would wreck their funding model, and while I've not got any sympathy for them it is fairly obvious that they'll either break the law or move to where it can't touch them.

Sounds like a good deal to me

[willoughby]

If we can raise children who are better, more agile thinkers & at the same time put a dent in the corporate America machine I say, "Go for it".

Re:Sounds like a good deal to me

[CHIT2ME]

I agree! But, shouldn't smart phones etc. be banned in the classroom anyway?

Re:Sounds like a good deal to me

[VortexCortex]

If we can raise children who are better, more agile thinkers & at the same time put a dent in the corporate America machine I say, "Go for it".

I would like to point out that raising children who are better, more agile thinkers, is directly in opposition to your goal. For example, they will simply enter a birthdate that is of "legal recording age" in order to both access and be tracked by corporate America. Meanwhile, folks like me who have a web forum where anyone can join and post anything have to jump through a few extra hoops for no real benefit.

Ultimately, if you wish to censor the children, the answer is to actually be a parent and watch what your damn kids do online. In otherwords: No, you can't raise children who are better, more agile thinkers & at the same time put a dent in the corporate America machine. Those bastdards already comply with COPPA, you twit.

In other words

[SuperKendall]

There is a widespread belief among teachers that students' constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans

Teachers have this lawn, see? And they would very much like you to get off of it.

Stop trying to ban things and learn to work with what kids have natural interests in.

Re:In other words

[Obfuscant]

Stop trying to ban things and learn to work with what kids have natural interests in.

It has nothing to do with the message ("what kids have a natural interest in"), but with the medium.

In Too Big To Know the point is made that the online medium is creating a generation that has a shorter attention span and cannot deal with more traditional means of education (like reading paper books.) It's the natural result of working in an instant gratification environment.

It's not a case of banning anything, it's a case of teachers who have thirty little people in their care trying to be able to teach all thirty of them the things that those little people ought to know, like how to make change. Thirty people with thirty second attention spans would be impossible to manage in any organized way. Just as you get Billy paying attention, Suzie's mind has wandered off to something else.

Re:In other words

[SuperKendall]

I am not wholly convinced computers create shorter attention spans.

Consider how locked on to modern mobile computing devices kids are. They sure do not SEEM like people with short attention spans when they are using a tablet. They just find other things less interesting than what they are focused on.

That is why it's important to figure out how to take advantage of this natural interest in educating kids. We have already found a way to extend attention spans they enjoy; make use of that.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trying to ban things and learn to work with what kids have natural interests in.

Yes indeed folks, Madison Avenue marketing tactics are now confused with "natural interests"

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

We have already found a way to extend attention spans they enjoy; make use of that.

You've confused "sloth" with "extended attention span"

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words...the data collection is already taking place.

Re:In other words

[geekoid]

It's not instant gratification, it's universal knowledge.
Many traditional means are dead. Kids can do FAR more at the same time today then every before, and that will be their edge.

"Thirty people with thirty second attention spans would be impossible to manage in any organized way
yes, and it would be impossible to teach with the methods from 1850 as well. SO? how about adapting?
Why not text questions? Why don't schools use these tools? we live in an era where anyone can learn anything. We live in an era where kids can learn better and faster. We live in an era where we could teach kids at there own pace, even with 30 in a classroom. It can all be done cheaply and better then traditional means.

Let set up long term(multi-year) education goals for kids? if they are accomplished at 13, great, 18? great. IN either case they graduate. Teenagers are running corporation, so I'm not exactly worried about the generation. I'm worried that we want to stick to useless ways of teaching just for the sake of tradition.
Lets not stuff traditional* ways down their throats because 'change is hard'.

*tradition just means 'not needing to think'.

Re:In other words

[geekoid]

People confuse 'doing more' with 'short attention spans'.
These kids maintain separate conversation, on the fly and access information nearly instantly. Kids by their nature are resourceful, and like to do things.

These same yahoos that complain about kids would be perfectly fine if the kid sat under a tree all summer, doing nothing.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was kid, I was able to doodle at will and pay attention to the background noise of teachers trying to teach, when some salient point was offered that seemed relevant to my understanding of the subject at hand, I would interrupt my doodling to pay attention long enough to figure out if the point was valuable, much like a computer's idle process is suspended when there's a data processing task to be performed.

Perhaps it's not kids' attention spans but the lack of feedback they provide their teachers that is mistaken for lack of attention.

The set of information relevant to children learning to navigate the world is a moving target. One that is continually augmented by the nature of the society in which they operate. Teachers, on the other hand, age and mature into a system that is less prone to change. They have greater challenges keeping up with the demands of students, parents, administrators and their personal lives. Not to mention the fact that historically educational texts have lagged decades behind modern development, especially with regards to technology.

I would argue that has technological changes accelerates, many teachers are increasingly left behind. It's even a criticism, just a point of conjecture. There's so much available to kids, on the internet, on their phones, through the expanded marketing and advertising channels that bombard us all, that I would argue it may seem overwhelming to adults who concerned about kids development and are powerless to demand the time and focus that school once commanded.

I'm sure it's a challenge to make academics seem relevant in a world that presents a greater volume of information and complexity through an ever expanding firehose. I wouldn't want the job, but I fail to see how complaining about the perception that kids aren't paying attention is going to change anything.

Teachers, unless they're collecting the data to prove their point about kids' attention span, seem engaged in hypothetical assessment serving little purpose or good.

Re:In other words

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Stop trying to ban things and learn to work with what kids have natural interests in.

My daughter keeps begging me to help her give her personal information to BlueKai, I'm going to take your advice and help her with that tonight!

Re:In other words

[NotSanguine]

Let set up long term(multi-year) education goals for kids? if they are accomplished at 13, great, 18? great. IN either case they graduate. Teenagers are running corporation, so I'm not exactly worried about the generation. I'm worried that we want to stick to useless ways of teaching just for the sake of tradition. Lets not stuff traditional* ways down their throats because 'change is hard'.

Personally, I'm less concerned about the 13-18 yo demographic and more concerned about the 5-11 yo one. As is the FTC, since the rules change applies only to children under 13.

Many preteens/teenagers know when they're being marketed to and have the sophistication to deal with it appropriately. Younger children need to be monitored by their parents as they likely don't have the sophistication to understand what marketers are trying to accomplish.

I certainly don't want advertisers to create and maintain dossiers (with or without names) on my children (or on me, for that matter -- however, I understand the game and can take precautions for myself. I should be able to do the same for my kids). It's unfair to the child and it allows marketers an unprecedented level of intimacy with my childrens' habits and interests.

in case you hadn't noticed, our corporate overlords^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H benevolent businesses do *not* have our best interests at heart. They just want more and more money. That's what corporations do. I'm not downing capitalism or the value of using market forces.

However it's clear that they need to be restrained to keep them from further intruding on our personal lives.

We don't want the government to do this kind of thing. What makes it okay for corporations to do so on a much wider scale?

Re:In other words

[TapeCutter]

My kids are adults now but I seem to recall they could concentrate on video games for hours (if not days) at a time.

Re:In other words

[Decker-Mage]

It isn't funny at all that I've been hearing the same argument, children's short attention spans, as the reason that education is the shit-pit it has ever been. And that truth covers the last fifty years. First it was TV, they they added music TV as the extended cause, then computers, now it's smart devices, and the list is rather endless. That doesn't even bring into the discussion theories about diet, parental involvement, etc., although I will give parental involvement a nod as something useful in disciplinary cases.

I have been teaching, very successfully I might add, for the last forty years, since my early teens, at the grade levels, university, military, and in the classroom and out. I haven't had any trouble. Then again, every time I have taught, I have had to prove my effectiveness as a teacher.

I have yet to see it discussed outside certain, very limited, academic circles the qualifications required to become a teacher, especially when it comes to academic rigor outside the education departments on our campuses, nor are they required to prove that they can teach effectively before being hired on a permanent basis, let alone had a lifetime sinecure. Should I have failed, my stint at teaching would have ended right away with no doubt as to why my condition was terminated.

I have discussed this topic with many an effective, retired (notice that qualification), teacher over my lifetime and the constant refrain has always been that those that can't teach should be fired.

The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers?

[thesupraman]

I wonder if these are the same teachers that insist kids need laptops, or even better ipads
(and of course a generous number of those to be given to the teachers, their friends, etc)
to that they can 'teach them'..

I would agree technology is an issue, especially for younger children - the teachers in general
are not exactly fighting against it in general. All our local schools now REQUIRE laptops
for children who are quite honestly too young for them, and one is now REQUIRING ipads
unless a child has 'special dispensation', what a load of BS.

There are still some great teachers, they are just a rapidly dwindling minority, being replaced
by the hoards who just want their job to be made easier and easier, while having more and more
say in the social/moral/health/etc areas of the kids upbringings.

I know its a rant, but a very true one - parents these days are pretty much assumed to not have
their own kids best interests in mind, meanwhile the average abilities of kids leaving (especially
younger levels of..) schools is dropping, what a surprise.

IMHO being a responsible parent has gained a new requirement - fighting the BS educator and
political attacks on parents and children, to keep at least a hint of freedom of thought for the next
generation. Its a sad day.

Widespread belief

[Hatta]

Sure, there's a widespread belief, but is there data? Show me data that exposure to technology is negatively correlated with attention spans, then it might be worth doing something about it. Until then, it's just speculation.

Many things that are widely believed are not true. It's widely believed that the streets are more dangerous today than when we were kids. But crime rates are at a 30 year low, and juvenile crime is at all time lows. Widespread belief is NEVER justification to do ANYTHING except collect data.

Re:Widespread belief

[stanlyb]

You mean, like nowadays dates, when HE, and SHE, are sitting together, on the same table, drinking coffee, and....chatting, using their iPhones? or updating their Facebook status? You don't consider this as a data?

Re:Widespread belief

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Show me data that exposure to technology is negatively correlated with attention spans, then it might be worth doing something about it.

I fully agree, and furthermore - woo xiaorishu has put something new on youtube gtg

Re:Widespread belief

[Obfuscant]

How about here? It's a fascinating read.

Re:Widespread belief

[Hatta]

Not really helpful.

But the most distressing takeaway is: âoe87% say these technologies are creating an âeasily distracted generation with short attention spansâ(TM) and 64% say todayâ(TM)s digital technologies âdo more to distract students than to help them academically.â

Looks like they're trying to dress up anecdotes as data. Attention spans can be measured. What is the average attention span of children who use digital technology N hours a week, and how does it differ from those who use digital technology M hours per week? Is it statistically significant?

Now yes, there are going to be confounding factors. But you don't have to eliminate confounding factors to show a difference. You only have to eliminate confounding factors to show that a difference that exists is only due to the independent variable. But no one has even shown that an actual difference exists yet.

Re:Widespread belief

[geekoid]

it is data. If you mean 'date' that's completely different topic. If you do mean date, who are you to tell others how to date?

What we need is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...less regulation, and better education. Making laws like this won't stop invasion of privacy, the companies will just find yet another loophole to get what they want.

Re:What we need is...

[c0lo]

...less regulation, and better education. Making laws like this won't stop invasion of privacy, the companies will just find yet another loophole to get what they want.

to slow the deployment of applications that provide tremendous benefits to children, and to slow the economic growth and job creation generated by the app economy

If job creation is the goal: give them spoons instead shovels.
If the market is so good of providing tremendous benefits for children, why the hell are parents still needed? Take the children immediately after birth and provide them with tremendous benefits for all their life!!

It's always something

[OrangeTide]

Exactly, why are the people educating our children not exercising some basic critical thinking. They grab up some convenient anecdotal evidence, then bandy it about as if it were fact. Two decades ago, the big problem with children was ADHD and we needed to medicate them all immediately. Perhaps some children had ADHD, but it was no where near as prevalent as educators inferred. I guess before that it was comic books or television that interfered with a teacher's ability to hold a student's attention.

And I applaud your response, if many people generally believe something, that is a good metric to use to start testing that belief to confirm or deny it.

(to grammar nazis: tautology can be rhetorical)

I fully agree with the FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be absolutely illegal to collect ***ANY*** information on anyone without direct, express opt-in. Period. Full stop. I don't care if this ruins ad revenue. There is no guranteed right to a profit, only the right to pursue it. I for one, would like to see more of a craigslist-style WWW with little to no corporate presence save having to physically choose to go to a website. Corporations want to have ads, they should pay dearly for the right to show them.

I truly miss the simpler Internet of the late 90s. I don't get why everyone thinks they have to monetize everything. Really?

In order to have a nice Internet experience, because I already pay to access the Internet:

- I block all ads. Nothing escapes the several methods I use to maintain a clean Internet.
- I disallow all cookies.
- I disallow scripts except a couple of sites.
- I refuse to pass on HTTP/S referer, even though this means sites cannot accurately tell who is using them and from where. Disabling referer also has the side effect of killing ad revenue click through, but using a site doesn't mean that I agree to accept the ads or the tracking. When sites stop the ads and tracking, I will stop the blocking. Tit for tat. Fair is fair. You want to track me? Pay for the right to do so. I'll license my computer out for $1000 per year per company that engages in that type of behavior.

Re:I fully agree with the FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

*Links you to my tinfoil hat affiliate marketing program*

limited possabilities

[sjames]

Since the additional programming to accommodate the requirements would add jobs, that must not be it.

So it means that they don't want to provide content for children at all unless they are allowed to exploit them in ways they feel sure the parents won't approve of.

That sounds a bit creepy, really.

Re:limited possabilities

[Anonymous Coward]

^ This.

Re:The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, they could well be hoards not hordes.

The real confusion

[SuperKendall]

You've confused "sloth" with "extended attention span"

As a professional developer whose greatest asset is a massive reservoir of sloth, I would say you are confused yourself about what traits in kids it is beneficial to eliminate.

Sloth is one of the greatest forces for good, when harnessed correctly.

Re:The real confusion

[jythie]

The best engineers are lazy.... ones that want to create more work then necessary complicate things that could be kept simple ^_^

Re:The real confusion

[smooth wombat]

So then you're agreeing with Barney Stinson when he said:

That's what corporate America wants: people who seem like bold risk takers, but never actually do anything. Actually doing things get you fired.

Re:The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers

[geekoid]

No, it isn't a true rant and flies against all the data, in general.

And yes, requiring iPad is BS that means they are using some sort of single device took they shouldn't be using.

Not another "think of the children!" attempt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: What should we always say when a politician attempts to pass a new law and says the magic words: "for the children"?
A: "Hell NO!"
This new wonderful panacea law designed to make children happy and healthy will have an effect of the rest of us. Now every website will by law be required to collect your date of birth. You will probably be forced to answer truthfully under penalty of perjury and go to jail. This information will be stored on the companies database that will be shared with all sorts of marketing agencies, and the occasional hackers.
Children will, of course, be able answer whatever they want since they are too young to be charged.

Is this really a system you want? It's what you're going to get.

I know that all this technology certainly isn't...

[CityZen]

... interrupting my, um... I wonder what's new on Facebook?

Good?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb"

PUA HTML could be great to childrens apps

[FredAndrews]

A significant motivation for starting the W3C Private User Agent community group was the experience of watching children using online apps with the understand of all the covert monitoring and tracking going on. I believe that a lot could be done to better secure the privacy of the web browser and to better support a more private platform for children, and others. Most of the apps for very young children really do not need to be connected to the web, the apps just need to be downloaded, and could then be run in a sandbox.

I get to make that choice

[Anonymous Coward]

... If adopted, the effect of these new rules would be to slow the deployment of applications that provide tremendous benefits to children..."

I don't care what some dumbass at apple says. My wife and I (and ONLY my wife and I) get to decide what benefits our children. That guy can go F himself if he thinks otherwise.

Re:The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in education. Many teachers would rather that money go towards shrinking classroom sizes, rather than it be diverted towards a handful of computer vendors.

At least laptops can teach kids how to use a mouse and a keyboard - superior interface devices, when it comes to producing things like code and papers. I feel that giving kids ipads/touch devices will ultimately benefit marketers and ipad/touch device vendors more than they will students.

Either way, once these devices are in the hands of students, their presence will be used as an excuse to make classrooms even larger - "Thanks to this technology, you can teach more students with fewer instructors!" Which is definitely true, as long as you are dealing with motivated students. Immature and struggling students will of course fall further behind as class sizes increase and individual instruction becomes harder to get.

Re:The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers

[Rich0]

What I wonder is if they propose to send parents to jail for abuse if they don't buy iPads for their kids, or consent to allow their kids to use turnitin, or whatever.

What happens when the school says they won't accept papers that don't come through turnitin, and the parent sends turnitin a letter telling them that they explicitly do not consent to this and any report to the contrary is a forgery, and that a suit would be filed if they create an account for their child?

It is already crazy how kids can't qualify for financial aid if their parents refuse to sign a FAFSA form. In fact, they can be turned down if the spouse of one of their parents refuses to sign, even though they are not in any way biologically related. Well, they can wait until they're 26 or whatever the age is where parental income is no longer considered.

slow economic, cut jobs

[manu0601]

[this will] slow the economic growth and job creation generated by the app economy

Yes, as usually said when any anything is proposed that could be annoying for people making profits. Did they heard about the story of Peter and the wolf?

Even if technological development came to a halt

[triclipse]

"... will the new FTC rules end up helping children (by enhancing their privacy and, if industry pundits are right, reducing the amount of content available online for children - thus enhancing their attention spans?"

That question is absurd. There is far, far more than enough content currently available for children that slowing, or even stopping development, would do nothing to affect the attention span of children. (Even assuming a negative impact from all this "content" - which seems dubious to me anyway.)

It's just another push for COPPA.

[tlambert]

I could definitely live without another push for COPPA.

Children are already protected by not being able to legally enter into contracts before their 18th birthday.

The internet won't exclude children.

[Anonymous Coward]

Greedy opinionated fucks (like your good self) will not be making money and find some other undereducated and vulnerable sucker to leech off.

Kiddie Porn. "Ban it for the children".

[Anonymous Coward]

And you say "Hell No!" and demand that kiddie porn be allowed.

How else can all the jobs and money that the KP industry create be maintained if you ban KP????

There are many of them

[aepervius]

You can probably find them if you have access to various journals. Those are not priamry source but report in general press. If you don't take the time to look it up yourself, I don#t see why I should. Example :

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44460161/ns/health-childrens_health/t/pants-wearing-sponge-blamed-kids-poor-attention-spans/
"The study, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics, found watching a snippet of a SpongeBob cartoon negatively affected 4-year-oldsâ(TM) attention spans. Watching a more realistic PBS cartoon did not."

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/05/games.attention/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/05/games.attention/index.html


Most study don't show a causation, they are only good enough to show a correlation. But since you asked about correlation it is good enough.

Attention span

[Anonymous Coward]

From the summary:

"...But would that be a bad thing? As reported in the Times last week, Matt Richtel writes, 'There is a widespread belief among teachers that students' constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans"

And that's where I stopped reading and went to the next article.

Radical New Concept

[Murdoch5]

Just take the technology out of the classroom! Go back to good old Blackboards and teach the kids like we did 15 years ago, where you learn how to handwrite, where you learn how to read from a textbook, where the teachers had to be more qualified then the student. 15 years ago I didn't need technology to survive the school day and I don't think kids need it now, what happened was a system got fixed that wasn't broken.

Re:The same 'every classroom needs IPads' teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it is an AC, but mod parent Insightful/Informative (because what should be Obvious apparently isn't to our government officials).