AFFIRMATIVE-CONSUMER/INTERNET-SIGNIFICANCE 352

INTERNET INVADES THE PRIVACY OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH

WEB SITES FOR KIDS INVADE CHILDHOOD PRIVACY

Charles Sykes, Senior Fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Institute, THE END OF PRIVACY, 1999, EE2001-JGM, p.73

Sites aimed at children were especially egregious violators. Fully 89 percent of children's web sites collected personal it) formation from children. The FTC found that while a little more than half provided some form for disclosure about how they handled the information, few sites took steps to ensure that parents would have any sort of involvement in the transactions involving their children. Fewer than one in ten made any provision for parental control over the collection or the use of information from their children.

Some of the sites asked for very detailed information from the children who visited. One asked children about their personal finances, including whether he or she has received gifts in the form of stock, cash, savings bonds, mutual funds, or certificates of deposit; who gave such gifts; whether a child puts their gifts into mutual funds, stocks, or bonds; and whether the child's parents own mutual funds. This particular Web site did not ask children to tell their parents about the information they were providing or to seek permission before putting the information on-line. Although other privacy protections continued to languish in Congress, the FTC report made it likely that some sort of legislation would eventually pass restricting the on-line collection of information from children.

CHILDREN CAN BE HEAVILY MANIPULATED IN THE NEAR-FUTURE INTERNET AND WIRELESS WORLD

Mark Harrington; The Seattle Times, March 29, 2000, SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A6 TITLE: Rules to guard youths' online privacy, but 'cookie' monster lurks // acs-VT2001

In other words, software could be designed to automatically e-mail or call children on their cell phones with an ad when they walk past a store. Increasingly, children between the ages of 10 and 16 in high- to medium-income areas are carrying cell phones, experts say.

While saying that existing rules will help parents avoid manipulation of their children, Lascoutx says that wireless Internet and other new technology presents challenges.

"I don't know how any of these things are going to be monitored, and I don't know how anybody's going to enforce monitoring," she said.

DATA MINING INDUSTRY TARGETS CHILDREN AND YOUTH

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, September 5, 1999, SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 4H TITLE: EDITORIAL: 'Little brothers' eroding privacy; No secrets: Expanding technology has created a large network of ways to find out nearly anything about anyone. // acs-EE2001

The so-called "data mining" industry doesn't even wait until you're an adult to start slapping you into databases. There's a huge business devoted to knowing and telling everything about teenagers --- not just names and addresses, but academic activities and personal behaviors as well. These firms get information from sources as wide-ranging as drivers' licenses, magazine subscriptions, student directories, even the companies that sell class rings and yearbooks. Some even co-opt school counselors into giving surveys to college-bound students, thus raking in a mountain of valuable information about school performance and family financial status.