FPF Advisory Board Member Professor Danielle Citron Comments on Study Showing Parents Facilitating Facebook Use for Kids Under 13
FPF Advisory Board Member Danielle Citron, the Lois K. Macht Research Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law comments in Concurring Opinions on a study released this week by Danah Boyd, Eszter Hargittai, Jason Schultz, and John Palfrey that Professor Citron says “sheds new light on COPPA’s failings” and underscores the need for universal privacy protections for all users rather than age or demographic-based protections. She explains:
“Given the current regulatory attention to COPPA, the study could not be more timely or more important. The authors surveyed a national sample of 1,007 parents and guardians who have children ages 10-14 living with them. They found that although many sites restrict access to children, many parents knowingly allow their children to lie about their age–indeed, they often help them do so– to gain access to age-restricted sties in violation of the sites’ ToS. This is true for some of the most popular social media sites and services, such as Facebook, Gmail, and Skype.”
Professor Citron then asks “What does all of this tell us?” She believes that “[r]ather than providing parents and children with greater options for controlling the use of youth’s personal information, COPPA has actually encouraged the adoption of formal limits on children’s access to online services. Those limits are rather meaningless, though.”
The entire piece by Professor Citron can be found here.
Nov. 5, 2011 – Magid: Regulators disagree about approach to online-privacy rules, Mercury News
Data and privacy regulators from governments around the world met in Mexico City last week for the 33rd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. As you might expect, they were joined by companies anxious to be part of the conversation, along with people from nonprofits that focus on privacy issues.
Nov. 2, 2011 – New Google ‘Transparency’ Feature Aims to Reduce Ad-Targeting Creepiness, Wired News
Data and privacy regulators from governments around the world met in Mexico City last week for the 33rd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners. As you might expect, they were joined by companies anxious to be part of the conversation, along with people from nonprofits that focus on privacy issues.
Google To De-Mystify Ad-Targeting
Wired quoted FPF’s Jules Polonetsky today in an article on Google’s new program called “Why These Ads.” Google announced the new feature to help consumers understand why they receive certain ads. To see the full article and read Jules’ quotes, please click here.
New Study Reveals Unintended Consequences of COPPA
In an effort to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), an act that requires parental consent for the online collection of information about children under 13, most social networking sites simply ban children under 13 from using their service. A peer-reviewed study released today, “Why Parents Help Their Children Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the ‘Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act‘” revealed that “many parents knowingly allow their children to lie about their age — in fact, often help them to do so — in order to gain access to age–restricted sites in violation of those sites’ ToS [Terms of Service].” Read more about the study here.
