Web Sites Accused of Collecting Data on Children
Source: The New York Times
A coalition of nearly 20 children's advocacy, health and public interest groups plans to file complaints with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, asserting that some online marketing to children by McDonald's and four other well-known companies violates a federal law protecting children's privacy.
The law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, requires Web site operators to obtain verifiable consent from parents before collecting personal information about children under age 13. But, in complaints to the F.T.C., the coalition says six popular Web sites aimed at children have violated that law by encouraging children who play brand-related games or engage in other activities to provide friends' e-mail addresses -without seeking prior parental consent.
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The sites cited by the advocacy groups include McDonald's HappyMeal.com; Nick.com, the Nickelodeon site owned by Viacom; General Mills' ReesesPuffs.com; SubwayKids.com; another General Mills site, TrixWorld.com; and Turner's CartoonNetwork.com.
...members of the coalition include Public Citizen, the Consumer Federation of America, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale.
Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/business/media/web-sites-accused-of-collecting-data-on-children.xml
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