On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking

theodp writes "In the latest installment of their online privacy investigation, the Wall Street Journal reports that children face intensive tracking on the web, finding that popular children's websites install more tracking technologies on personal computers than do the top websites aimed at adults. In an analysis of 50 sites popular with US teens and children, the WSJ found that Google — whose execs recently lectured parents on online child safety — placed the most tracking files overall."

And who is surprised by this?

[PerformanceDude]

Most of the children's websites have "premium features" that you can only get to if you buy that virtual fluffy penguin or gold coin. This is just the nag factor at play. I have lost count of the number of times my kids have gone to sites like "Moshi Monster" or "Ella and Max" and found they could only play so far before they need to ask mum or dad for money to go further. If you as a parent can't face the tantrum that goes with the little darlings not being able to play the next level - then your only option is to pay up. Thankfully I can say no, but there are a lot of spoilt brats out there, so there is a market... With market comes cross-promotion opportunities, so tracking enhances the ability to profit. Simple really.

Re:And who is surprised by this?

[sjames]

I don't know if the marketing people have kids, but if they do it would serve them right if they get nice big drum sets and a lifetime supply of sugary candy with double caffeine.

Honestly, a bunch of adults ganging up to deceive children should be deeply ashamed of themselves and society should heap scorn upon them. They are the stereotypical mustache twirling villain that steals the baby's candy just because they can.

Re:Advertising?

[garcia]

It's not a surprise no but this is Slashdot where we understand these sorts of topics. The Wall Street Journal is not geared towards only those that have a clue about these things.

Now install Ghostery (to begin with) and make sure you are clearing all cookies and cache after every session. Yeah it's annoying but what does my kid need a login for any website for?

Re:And who is surprised by this?

[beakerMeep]

In this case I dont think it's that nefarious. I think it's easily many layers of middle managers trying to do a bit better than the last guy tossing on one more layer of tracking until you get a hairball of cookies, HTML5 DBs, Flash LSOs, etc. Most do not seem particularly intrusive alone, but added together the big picture is kinda creepy.

Still the WSJ article makes it sound like 50 mom and pop web sites using Google Analytics. They don't seem to differentiate that two cookies does not equal twice the tracking. One cookie is all you need to track many metrics.

The stuff I find really unnerving is the social network mining and analysis. The economist had a great story on it: http://www.economist.com/node/16910031?story_id=16910031 [economist.com]

Now this isn't just cookies on facebook, but actually recoding how long people talk on the phone to identify them as "influencers".

Between things like Radian6, Experian/Equifax/TansUnion, and RingLeaderDigital [arstechnica.com], there is some very shady tracking going on. And some of the companies are most definitely trying to tie in personally identifiable information. Certainly, the credit unions are committed to keeping just about every fact they can about you. They mine publicly available court records, work with your credit card companies, and they would love to know your browsing history. Their whole purpose it to create as complete a profile of you as possible. They say they delete the info in 10 years but I think some have been caught being less than diligent.

Anyways, for SOME of the more reputable* ad companies you can opt-out here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp [networkadvertising.org].

*Relative term

Re:And who is surprised by this?

[sjames]

The sad thing is, there is a legitimate place for sales and marketing, they've just been so busy racing to the bottom for so long that most of what they do now has nothing to do with legitimate practice.

It's to the point where a perfectly honest and reasonable seller can't remain in business unless they tell the truth in a sufficiently over the top way that it becomes gonzo.

Links to porn

[hex0D]

Did anyone else find the bit about y8.com having connections to a porn site ridiculous and hysterical? I mean, so what? The magazine rack where I bought my comics as a kid had adult magazines on the top shelf, the local video store had a back room with adult videos, etc. As long as kids aren't being directed to adult content, whats the big deal?

Re:What the?

[metrometro]

Actually, it's not. The site K8 is co-owned by xnxx, a porn forum. xnxx links traffic from their porn forum to the K8 kids site. All things considered, I'd rather not send my kids to a site pre-populated with people who spend a lot of time chatting about porn. More to the point of the story, these aren't people who care about education, kids, etc. It's all business. Which is fine, but I think I'll stick to pbs.org, thanks.

Re:Advertising?

[Ryanrule]

plus a childs brain is not fully developed, and advertisers use psychological tricks to force children to think they need things. i think we need to really look at the restricting the speech of advertising companies.

Re:And who is surprised by this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you missed all of history prior to the last 60 years.

Re:Advertising?

[mabhatter654]

WSJ IS read by people that have a clue.

The problem is that the people that "have a clue" will be calling up their marketing departments to ask why THEIR company is not collecting this critical information to justify the large cost companies have to pay for web hosting.

Re:Obligatory Firefox and plugins list

[Joe U]

I would like to add in using a ramdisk for temp files (Flash cookies) and on Windows an app like CCleaner, that can be run on login.

I've made Chrome pretty anonymous using those 2 tools and a batch file.

I also have my own internal DNS server to bypass my ISP and a VPN to another network that I run, most average users don't have that advantage, but it's possible.

It's hard to keep privacy.

Slashdot worse than Snazzyspace.

[Animats]

Snazzyspace only tried three times to put a cookie on my machine. Slashdot tried 33 times up to the point I posted this message.