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New York Fines Viacom, Mattel and Hasbro For Tracking Kids Online (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: Companies that operate popular kids websites like nickjr.com and barbie.com agreed to a $835,000 settlement and to change their practices after an investigation found the sites were enabled with technology that tracked kids' internet activities. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced his office reached settlements with Viacom, Mattel, Hasbro and JumpStart Games after an investigation into the companies found violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The investigation, called "Operation Child Tracker," found that websites operated by the companies enabled third-party vendors, such as marketing and advertising companies, to track children's online activity -- which violated federal law. Federal law prohibits the unauthorized collection of children's personal information on websites aimed at children under age 13. Viacom will pay $500,000; Mattel will pay $250,000; and JumpStart will pay $85,000. [Hasbro will not pay a penalty because it is part of a "safe harbor program" through the Federal Trade Commission that already requires more disclosures of web activity, Schneiderman said.]
It is called stalking. Just because you do it via the internet doesn't mean jack.
Awhile back Hasbro or Mattel got into hot water, well, slightly warm water for shipping lead painted toys to kids. The end result was that regulations were passed where toy makers had to have independent labs test for lead. This is an onerous cost to small toy makers and a lot of hobby sellers, etc complained about it to no avail. Mattel and the other big toy makers, who were the cause of the laws creation were made exempt from this, the reason being was that they were large enough to have their own in house labs to test. Even though they already proved they don't.