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Disney Sued For Allegedly Spying On Children Through 42 Gaming Apps (washingtonpost.com)
schwit1 shares a report from The Washington Post (Warning: may be paywalled; alternative source): The Walt Disney Co. secretly collects personal information on some of their youngest customers and shares that data illegally with advertisers without parental consent, according to a federal lawsuit filed late last week in California. The class-action suit targets Disney and three other software companies -- Upsight, Unity and Kochava -- alleging that the mobile apps they built together violate the law by gathering insights about app users across the Internet, including those under the age of 13, in ways that facilitate "commercial exploitation."
The plaintiffs argue that Disney and its partners violated COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law designed to protect the privacy of children on the Web. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California, seeks an injunction barring the companies from collecting and disclosing the data without parental consent, as well as punitive damages and legal fees. The lawsuit alleges that Disney allowed the software companies to embed trackers in apps such as "Disney Princess Palace Pets" and "Where's My Water? 2." Once installed, tracking software can then "exfiltrate that information off the smart device for advertising and other commercial purposes," according to the suit. Disney should not be using those software development companies, said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "These are heavy-duty technologies, industrial-strength data and analytic companies whose role is to track and monetize individuals," Chester said. "These should not be in little children's apps." Disney responded to the lawsuit, saying: "Disney has a robust COPPA compliance program, and we maintain strict data collection and use policies for Disney apps created for children and families. The complaint is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of COPPA principles, and we look forward to defending this action in court."
The plaintiffs argue that Disney and its partners violated COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a federal law designed to protect the privacy of children on the Web. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California, seeks an injunction barring the companies from collecting and disclosing the data without parental consent, as well as punitive damages and legal fees. The lawsuit alleges that Disney allowed the software companies to embed trackers in apps such as "Disney Princess Palace Pets" and "Where's My Water? 2." Once installed, tracking software can then "exfiltrate that information off the smart device for advertising and other commercial purposes," according to the suit. Disney should not be using those software development companies, said Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "These are heavy-duty technologies, industrial-strength data and analytic companies whose role is to track and monetize individuals," Chester said. "These should not be in little children's apps." Disney responded to the lawsuit, saying: "Disney has a robust COPPA compliance program, and we maintain strict data collection and use policies for Disney apps created for children and families. The complaint is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of COPPA principles, and we look forward to defending this action in court."
I can see companies doing this as business as usual. And as usual nothing will happen to them, they have lots of money and money gets you out of every problem.
It's an open secret that COPPA is rarely if ever enforced, and the analytic data of children is more valuable for marketing than other users'.
... when you know everyone goes right back to their surveillance devices which video/audio/motion/brainscan (soon) their willing victims 24/7. It feels like a living nightmare.
Their overlords are looking for new 'pizza' to abduct.
Hakuna Matata!
Of course kids are targeted and exploited for commercial gain. Go look at how tons of various "for kids" food items are marketed toward them. Cereals and yogurts are the first to spring to mind. Also soda, chips and fruit snacks.
It should come as no surprise app developers are collecting data about their users, regardless of age. It also should come as no surprise that they are selling this information to companies that dearly want to know how to offer you a solution for something you didn't even realize was a problem.
I hate Disney though, so hopefully they get punished with a stiff fine. haha right.
I propose a companion law to give it more teeth. It could be called the Financial and Economic Exploitation Law. They could then be known collectively as COPPA-FEEL
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It's a spy world, it's a spy world
It's a spy world, it's a spy world
It's a world of data, a world of tears
It's a world of ads and a world of fears
There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware
It's a spy world after all
(Everybody now) it's a spy world after all, it's a spy world after all
(Everybody now) it's a spy world after all, it's a spy, spy, spy, spy world
"The complaint is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of COPPA principles" translates to
when our lobbyists wrote the COPPA law for the lawmakers, they provided enough loop holes for us to continue to fuck with you. thus we know the material of the law better because we wrote it.
now... if it comes to the "spirit" of the law... if any one cares that is, they might be fucked as well.
Did you know there is a lot of KOOL stuff on the internet IF you say you are over 21?
I thought Disney would respond that the companies were rogue and it somehow missed their audit window by *pinches* this much as is the usual excuse in this case. Maybe that wasn't an option for them. But they sound guilty as sin in this case.
This would make a good Silicon Valley episode about COPPA.
Oh, wait... Never mind...
Disney's probable defense: "We DIDN'T KNOW that the data-mining contractors we hired to build our apps would actually data-mine our customers."
It's indeed reckless and suspicious, but unless one can prove Disney actually knew, they may get off the hook.
I once worked for a big company who rented H1B visa workers from a fly-by-night contractor who mistreated the visa workers. If visa abuse were found, the big company could deny any wrong-doing by saying the contractor's staff was the contractor's responsibility, not theirs. The big co simply rented labor by the hour.
Table-ized A.I.
Didn't Disney give Steve Jobs a controlling stake in exchange for Pixar?
So in essence it's really Pixar and Steve Jobs' estate, or Laurene Powell then.
Somewhat ironically her bio on Wikipedia says she "...advocates for policies concerning education and immigration reform, social justice and environmental conservation.
This woman seems very crooked
Let's thank Walt Disney for thinking relentlessly of the children!
Here's a translation of Disney's answer: HAHA, we are a big company in America, we are protected by law to spy on you.
The complaint is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of COPPA principles...
The law does not mean what you think it means...
Once in awhile, a company gets called out for tracking, such as in this case -- but they are by no means the only offenders. There are plenty of other companies out there who are simply more adept at not getting caught. One of the things that you'll see every time you open an app with an obviously youthful target audience, is an initial query when the app is first opened: "How old are you?" The obvious takeaway should be, if the user opening the app is under thirteen, turn off tracking... right?
But consider this: we all know perfectly well that companies don't want to turn off tracking -- and in fact, the habits of the younger generation are dramatically more valuable, since those are tomorrows big consumers that we're talking about... and ironically enough, making it illegal to track them makes their usage data that much more valuable.
The solution? Simple: disable features when a user says they're under thirteen. How many times have you opened an app intended for one of your younger children, entered their age, and been abruptly informed that you either need to get parental permission to use the app, or simply can't use the app at all? Personally, I've seen it at least a few times. At first glance, it means (at the very least) that someone who can be legally tracked needs to log into the app for their child... or, alternatively, the increasingly tech savvy youth -- who in many cases is already staring at the screen themselves when this query pops up -- simply needs to go back one screen and lie about their age.
To wit, it has become in the best interests of these app companies to socially engineer their youthful target audience into becoming pathological liars. It wants to know my age? Oh... I better lie, or they'll turn stuff off. The immediate results are, it gets that much easier for these companies to track their users with relative impunity... because after all, the users said they were over thirteen... didn't they?
But I honestly have to wonder: aside from all that never-ending tracking... what exactly are the long term results of this social engineering experiment?
I imagine Trump will put an end to this madness soon. Good luck guys. "Regulations" are evil, remember that.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.