Do Not Track: Children Should be a Top Priority

Society has an obligation to protect our children and online safety for
children should be a priority. We need a three-pronged approach to address
this issue: policy changes; industry self-regulation; and more parental
tools, monitoring and education.

A 2010 Wall Street Journal
investigation<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703904304575497903523187146.html>into
online privacy, found that popular children's websites install more
tracking technologies on personal computers than do the top websites aimed
at adults. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says 8 percent of
the ID theft complaints in 2010 involved children. Further, Consumer
Reports<http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2011/june/electronics-computers/state-of-the-net/facebook-concerns/index.htm>notes
that one million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to
other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook in the past year – and that's just
one social media site.

Current legislative efforts have failed to act to update COPPA, the
industry is failing miserably at self-regulating. As such, it is essential
that thought leaders such as the World Wide Web Consortium come to
agreement on standards that legislators will support and the industry will
implement – all without stifling innovation. No easy task!

Simply, consumers must be allowed to control their personal data without
losing all the benefits offered by the Internet. As an example, many
Facebook apps require absolute access to all the personal data of a user in
order to participate. This is a false choice. Consumers should continue to
be able to participate online without being forced to give up their
personal privacy. Children should be able to go online, play and learn
without leaving a digital track that haunts them for life.

As the media continues to expose the prevalence of  the collection and
aggregation of personal information, consumers will demand change. Even
with action from Congress and more regulation of the online marketing
industry, we believe that to keep up with new technologies, the private
market must be a large part of the solution.

We need to look at the broader implications and responsibility of Silicon
Valley, and not simply the profit margins of data aggregators and marketing
agencies. The short-term “get it while we can” mentality has long-term
consequences for the profitability of technology and online marketing
companies: they will continue to lose trust with consumers unless they step
up and support best practices that protect their own revenue source –
people. How many more articles like the New York Times’ You for Sale:
Mapping, and Sharing, the Consumer
Genome<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quiet-giant-of-consumer-database-marketing.html?pagewanted=all>”
will it take before consumers begin to exodus Facebook and Google. How long
will it take before  McDonald’s HappyMeal.com and CartoonNetwork.com are
blacklisted from the family computer?

Parents certainly play an important role in modulating their kids’ online
lifestyle, and parents should be educated about best practices and the
tools already at their disposal to monitor and moderate what content their
kids see. However, our kids should be allowed access to the wealth of
information and entertainment the Internet has to offer...just not at the
cost of their safety and privacy.

It is currently a big line between data use and abuse. The debate around Do
Not Track standards should serve to define that line. Focusing on children
first is not only a societal obligation but the path to a faster resolution
of a growing problem that threatens technological innovation and our access
to the Web.
