Google Confirms That It's Designing Kid-Friendly Versions of Its Services

An anonymous reader writes USA Today reports that rumors about Google working on specific services catering to young kids are true. From the article: "With Google processing 40,000 search queries a second — or 1.2 trillion a year — it's a safe bet that many of those doing the Googling are kids. Little surprise then that beginning next year the tech giant plans to create specific versions of its most popular products for those 12 and younger. The most likely candidates are those that are already popular with a broad age group, such as search, YouTube and Chrome. 'The big motivator inside the company is everyone is having kids, so there's a push to change our products to be fun and safe for children,' Pavni Diwanji, the vice president of engineering charged with leading the new initiative, told USA TODAY. 'We expect this to be controversial, but the simple truth is kids already have the technology in schools and at home,' says the mother of two daughters, ages 8 and 13. 'So the better approach is to simply see to it that the tech is used in a better way.'"

Comments

The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

besides the obvious filtering of content, will Google also be limiting advertisements and tracking of kids searches?

Re:The real question is

[Chrisq]

besides the obvious filtering of content, will Google also be limiting advertisements and tracking of kids searches?

I would imagine it will be targeting adverts at kids, and tracking just as much.

Re:The real question is

[Jahta]

besides the obvious filtering of content, will Google also be limiting advertisements and tracking of kids searches?

I would imagine it will be targeting adverts at kids, and tracking just as much.

A more interesting question is "how will Google determine who is a kid?". Will adults have to login to get the grown-up version, and prove that their login really belongs to an adult by providing, for example, credit card details?

Now you have tracking that's worth big money to marketeers.

Re:The real question is

[BarbaraHudson]

besides the obvious filtering of content, will Google also be limiting advertisements and tracking of kids searches?

I would imagine it will be targeting adverts at kids, and tracking just as much.

That's going to be a serious problem. I don't know about other jurisdictions, but here it's illegal to target advertising to young kids.

Re:The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

How hard is it to provide www.youtube.com along with kids.youtube.com and let folks decide for themselves where to go?

PBS is quite capable of broadcasting child friendly content without worrying about how to make certain that it really is being watched by kids. Nor are they really concerned that a kid could switch from PBS to Cinemax. That's the role of the parents.

Content provider provide content. Parents parent.

Re:The real question is

[blueshift_1]

That's going to be a serious problem. I don't know about other jurisdictions, but here it's illegal to target advertising to young kids.

I see where you're coming from, but it'd be better than the political and weird stuff that comes up. I see it as there's no real difference between which commercials show up on Cartoon Network or any other kids oriented network. Just playing to the primary demographic.

Re:The real question is

[Chrisq]

besides the obvious filtering of content, will Google also be limiting advertisements and tracking of kids searches?

I would imagine it will be targeting adverts at kids, and tracking just as much.

That's going to be a serious problem. I don't know about other jurisdictions, but here it's illegal to target advertising to young kids.

Right, but the adverts will officially to "inform the parents who are viewing with the child", just like all the adverts on children's television. Everyone will know that they are targeted ad kids but officially they won't be to comply with the law.

Re:The real question is

[space_jake]

The real question is do the Google engineers having these kids know they can't just abandon them like their other offerings?

Re:The real question is

[BarbaraHudson]

"Eww Quebec. I'd take fast food over french personally."

So you're going to boycott french fries?

Kids are a challenge. Especially with software.

[blueshift_1]

I'm really glad Google are taking this on. This is just a challenging age group because so much mental/cognative development occurs in this time. Something that is increadibly informative for a 7 year old can quite uninteresting to a 10 year old. Finding a way to make it instructive, intuitive, and generally usefull without alienating age groups will be challenging. I'm curious what they come up with.

Re:Darknet for kids

[Thanshin]

Will this be a darknet, where google and wikipedia pretend that santa claus exists?

What do you mean "pretend"...

Re:This sounds like a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise, if you're networking-minded, you could play around with running squid and dansguardian as a content-based filter to at least reduce the amount of age-inappropriate content they come across?

Re:This sounds like a good idea

[cripkd]

Right, because in 2014 there's NOTHING useful on the internet.

We will continue to have a book-only education FOREVER and we will ALWAYS teach our kids how to write by hand before typing. Because the paradigm never changes.

Believe it or not I have shown them wikipedia, at least the version in my own language, because they are inquisitive. Yes, I could read it to them, I could study it in advance and present the information to them and so on. But to be honest I actually believe the paradigm has shifted and they will live in a different world as my parents did and they will need access to newer tools earlier.

The internet is just a tool. Books can be evil or stupid too.

PS: https://blockly-games.appspot....

And a baby friendly version called googoo.com

[technosaurus]

... they'll have buy the domain name from the makers of googoo clusters though.

Re:This sounds like a good idea

[Dins]

At 8 years old they shouldn't be using the internet at all. You are a failure as a parent.

Totally disagree. I think children should be taught about the internet and internet safety (i.e. dos and don'ts, never give out information, don't talk to strangers, etc.) from as early as they seem ready. But with a LOT of parental guidance. I would never set an 8 year old free with, "Have fun, and don't google goatse!" But I would teach them and closely supervise them, both with software (like netnanny or something) and by just being involved.

Probably SJW infested

[hessian]

"I'm sorry, I can't find anything for monogamy. Perhaps you'd like to research transsexual group anal sex orgies instead?"

That language "13 and younger?" - because of law

[qubezz]

COPPA - Children's Online Privacy Protection Act is the law they are attempting to skirt through directed effort, which defines a child for the sake of all its protection as an individual under 13.

(1) IN GENERAL.â"It is unlawful for an operator of a website or online service directed to children, or any operator that has actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from a child, to collect personal information from a child in a manner that violates the regulations prescribed under subsection (b). ... and it continues.

I wonder how they expect to monetize or indoctrinate this audience. As long as they don't violate the terms of the privacy law (which got iOS contact-stealing app company Path fined $800,000, in part for collecting on children) they can run a kid's site. This means that as long as they aren't wantonly scarfing details, they can still pitch sugar cereals.