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Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

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Re: Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

#11

Post by colinplamondon »

desu wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #2

"Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games." If it can do that it can send back whole conversations as well, but the software company 'does not record childrens names or addresses' ?? They ought to be made an example of if this is true. "I…

I'm not condoning this company's actions but since it is almost certainly a completely automated process, how does this differ from, say, gmail reading kids' conversations to display ads? Should gmail be restricted from doing such for minors? How about online communities like Habbo Hotel, et al? Because if they don't collect general marketing information from the activities within their pages, I'll eat my hat. And ho…

Totally and 100% different- we're talking algorithmic analysis versus actually honest to god selling the contents of your email.

Re: Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

#12

Post by milkshakes »

rms wrote: post #9
SwellJoe wrote: post #4

There is a special place in hell for these people.

Can anyone think of a dumber/more offensive thing done by marketers?

this one pissed a lot of people off, though i thought it was clever.

http://gothamist.com/2007/08/16/hangups_about_s.php

Re: Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

#13

Post by rms »

milkshakes wrote: post #12
rms wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone think of a dumber/more offensive thing done by marketers?

this one pissed a lot of people off, though i thought it was clever. http://gothamist.com/2007/08/16/hangups_about_s.php

It's a good example of a different type of offensiveness. There is a definite difference between the offensiveness of a tasteless joke and something that strongly goes against our inbuilt desire to protect children. Also, it hanger ad seems inherently less dumb in that it was designed to generate controversy, because (most) attention is good attention. There is nothing good about the PR generated by the censorship company because there is nothing controversial about it; everyone thinks it is a bad idea.

Re: Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

#15

Post by SwellJoe »

stse wrote: post #14
SwellJoe wrote: post #4

There is a special place in hell for these people.

But until then they will probably prosper, as no one ever seems to get sentences for leaking/loosing/selling private information.

I would hope that there are legal consequences...this is a huge breach of trust, and there are quite a few laws in place to protect children online from marketers and predators, and these people are both.

I would also hope that they have trouble sleeping at night...but I may be giving them too much credit.

Re: Child-safety software sells kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

#16

Post by gaius »

colinplamondon wrote: post #11
desu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not condoning this company's actions but since it is almost certainly a completely automated process, how does this differ from, say, gmail reading kids' conversations to display ads? Should gmail be restricted from doing such for minors? How about online communities like Habbo Hotel, et al? Because if they don't collect general marketing information from the activities within their pages, I'll eat my hat. And ho…

Totally and 100% different- we're talking algorithmic analysis versus actually honest to god selling the contents of your email.

OK, but how to develop the algorithms without some representative data? Google just matches ads with keywords, its not particularly clever with semantics - it just knows how often an ad gets clicked.
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