CES 2013

children's privacy

FTC re-slams apps for kids over privacy concerns

In February 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a report titled Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures are Disappointing (PDF) that pointed out that there was "little or no" privacy information available to parents in the Android Google Play and Apple iOS app stores prior to download and scarce data in the apps themselves or on the app vendors websites.

And on Monday, the FTC issued a follow up report, Mobile Apps for Kids Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade that complains that "despite many high-visibility efforts to increase transparency in the mobile marketplace, little … Read more

Why did Google ask for kids' Social Security numbers?

Sometimes, one really wonders what's behind Google's doodling.

Recently, if your kids were entering the company's popular Doodle-4-Google competition, Google insisted on knowing a little about you.

On its parental consent form, it wanted to know your date of birth. It wanted to know where you were born. It wanted to know your parents' full details. Oh, and it wanted the last four digits of your Social Security number.

Yes, despite the fact that you might only be seven.

According to New York magazine, this particular little grouping of information might make it very easy to identify … Read more