Be under no illusions, someone is stalking your child. Sounds like paranoia?
Well, not according to Seana Mulcahy, an industry insider and author of an
interesting little piece entitled, “Most Consumers are Clueless” in a
MediaPost column called Online Spin.8 “What most consumers aren't used to is
how they're tracked by us and the company we keep,” she says, “. . . there
are many Netizens [sic] that aren't too savvy online”. She's writing about
the “Do Not Track List”. This is an idea being mooted by consumer advocates
which would allow us to opt out of targeted online advertising in just the
same way as signing up to the Mail or Telephone Preference Services stops us
from getting piles of irritating junk mail and those annoying phone calls
selling windows which always come just as you're sitting down to dinner.
But, as Mulcahy points out, the problem is that most people don't know that
they're being tracked and targeted in the first place. Terms such as “junk
mail”, “cold calls”, even “spam” have entered into everyday use. But what
about “behavioural targeting”? How many of us know about that? And how many
of us like the idea of our children's behaviour being monitored by predatory
advertisers?
One piece of research we conducted revealed that about 85 per cent of
children's favourite websites collect some sort of personal information -
e-mail addresses mainly but we found sites collecting the user's name,
address, postcode, city, country, date of birth, gender and age. Most of
this information is “compulsory”, in other words the child can't use
everything being offered on the site without divulging these personal
details. Fifteen per cent of sites demand information to participate at all.
Another 35 per cent offer ringtones, wallpaper, newsletters, screensavers or
“the chance to tell your friends” in exchange for the information. Except
exchange isn't really the right word. Exchange implies some sort of fair
deal where both parties know what's being given, what's being received and
why. The transaction involved in a child exchanging personal details for
“free stuff” is much less transparent than it might seem at first.
Let's take an example. Laura, aged 9, signs up to a toy website so that she
can make a Christmas list to send to all her friends and relatives. Already,
she's made public the sorts of toys she likes. This information, along with
her personal information, will be stored in a database. The host site now
knows just what toys to advertise to Laura and they may well also be able to
send adverts to Laura's mum and dad, aunt and uncle, and granny and grandpa
if she's given their details too. This data might then be “fused” with
information gathered from tracking software (‘cookies') which are placed on
Laura's computer both by the host site and companies advertising on the
site.
Privacy regulations are very quiet about cookies even though these pieces of
code monitor where Laura goes on the internet, what sort of links she clicks
on and how long she spends in different web areas. This “spyware” can also
scan the text of her conversations with friends and try to understand what
other sorts of things she might be persuaded to buy.
After signing up to the Christmas list, Laura will find herself increasingly
tempted to buy stuff she sees during her 1.9 hours a day on the computer
because someone now knows she likes soft toys in pink; someone now knows she
talks endlessly to her friend Carla about her pet rabbit; someone now knows
she has a new Nokia mobile phone; someone now knows she always clicks on the
big flashing adverts; someone now knows she can easily be lured away from
the site she's on with a more exciting offer; and someone now knows she's a
nine-year-old girl who lives in Luton. Someone now knows rather a lot about
Laura and knows the right buttons to press in her mind. Legally, Laura has
probably agreed to “someone” knowing all this by ticking a tiny box at the
end of a very long, boring privacy statement which she hasn't read and
wouldn't understand even if she did. Laura may also have agreed (without
knowing it) that she is over 13. But ethically, has Laura really agreed to
accept adverts targeted specifically at her? We don't think so. In fact most
kids don't want any adverts at all interfering with their fun. As one boy
said to us: “Every 15 minutes on telly, three minutes of advertising are on.
Why do you need it on the computer as well?”
The truth is that Laura and her parents have no idea that, because she was
tempted with the idea of making a Christmas list, she is now being
“behaviourally tracked” or, in other parlance, stalked. She didn't agree to
this. She couldn't. At 9 she doesn't have a sophisticated understanding of
the business models driving the internet. And as Seana Mulcahy concludes in
her article about her peers in the behavioural tracking industry: “My guess
is that most of these publishers and tools providers tend to be less than
transparent, with a what-they-don't-know-won't-hurt-them mentality.” Our
guess is she's right. Our other guess is that in the excitement she
describes about “what behavioural tracking can deliver to the bottom line”,
few have even begun to think about the implications for children.
Our research shows that children and parents don't think about the commercial
implications of giving out information online: they are much too preoccupied
with stranger-danger. And, indeed, on the surface stranger-danger is much
more alarming, while commercial intrusion appears to be pretty well
regulated. A glance at websites used by children shows that most sport a
privacy policy and many take particular care with children. Miniclip, for
example, won't ask children under 13 “to disclose any more personal
information than is necessary for them to participate in a particular
activity”. However, scratch the surface and we see that many of these
policies are not worth the cyber-paper they are written on. One in four of
the third-party advertisers on these sites do not have a privacy policy at
all and those that do offer little protection to children, so the minute
kids click on an enticing advert (which they may or may not realise is an
advert) anything they divulge is up for grabs.
One of the big problems in this area is that privacy laws are not unified
internationally and there is currently a hotchpotch of self-regulation and
national and international legislation. The implementation of the Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act in the US is an example. It stresses the role
of the parent and states that information from under-13-year-olds should not
be collected without specific parental permission. However, on every single
one of the sites we investigated it was easy for a child to disclose
personal information with no verifiable parental consent at all. In fact, 70
per cent of the sites made absolutely no attempt to encourage parents to be
involved. The sites Piczo, Cheatplanet and Popcap absolve themselves of the
need to involve parents by stating on the data collection page that the site
is only intended for those over 13 (Piczo and Cheatplanet) or 18 (Popcap).
As these sites are among the most visited sites by children under 13,
according to our survey, such a warning clearly has little effect. Sites
that are really only for children, such as Disney, Cartoon Network and
Barbie, do one of two things: either they ask for the parents' e-mail
address so that permission can be sought (Disney, Habbo Hotel and MyScene),
or they simply ask kids to tick a box to say they have asked their parents
(e.g, Cartoon Network UK). There's a problem with both of these approaches.
A kid is desperate to get on this fun site. Will they really go downstairs,
interrupt their mum and ask their permission? Or will they just tick the box
and get on with the game? We'd say 99 per cent of kids will go for option 2.
What about giving mum or dad's e-mail address? Well, if the child actually
does this it does activate a rapid message sent to the supplied e-mail
address offering the recipient a chance to cancel registration. (On some
sites the child can't register until parental approval is secured, but on
others the registration and site activities go ahead until a parent puts a
stop to it.) Of course, the system administrator has no idea whether that
e-mail address really belongs to the child's parent. It's really completely
useless. It's not only useless, it also contravenes another piece of
regulation, namely Section 19.33 of the Code of the Direct Marketing
Association which states clearly that parents' personal information must not
be collected from children!
The codes are not really thought through and we might be excused for thinking
that simply putting the onus for protecting kids on the shoulders of parents
is just a convenient cop-out. Another reason that using parental consent as
a protection for children's personal information is unlikely to be effective
is that kids really don't want their parents hanging around their private
online lives. After all, our parents wouldn't have checked out behind the
bicycle sheds. Indeed, researchers Sonia Livingstone and Monica Bober argue
that children see parental involvement in their internet activities as a
much greater threat to their privacy than giving out information. In their
survey, 69 per cent of 9 to 17-year-old daily and weekly users of the
internet said that they minded their parents monitoring their internet use;
63 per cent of 12 to 19-year-old home internet users had taken some action
to hide their online activities from their parents and 40 per cent had used
the internet to play games by changing their identity. Getting them to ask
their parents really isn't the answer to these privacy issues. Companies
themselves need to take more responsibility.
Companies are not just stalking kids online; they are also recruiting them to
fight in the battle for brand domination and market share. Close on half a
million young people in the UK alone have been enlisted by big youth brands,
and that's the figure from just one recruitment agency. Kids are regularly
signed up through the internet to be “insiders”, “informers” and “lifestyle
representatives” for big corporations. In order to find out first-hand how
this works, we decided that one of us (Agnes) should go under cover: So now
I'm Angie Harrison, age 10. But because I usually lie to get on the good
sites my cyber age is 14. OK? So I go to the www.dubit.com website where I'm
offered the chance to hang out with other teens by creating my own avatar
and chilling in the chat room. Sounds good. I sign up. Then I get this
welcome e-mail:
“Don't forget you can create your own mini homepage, upload your pics, and get
exploring the island and its buzzing community! Remember - the more you can
tell other people about yourself, the more likely you are to meet some
interesting people! We'd like to give you the opportunity to turn your
opinions into cash, too - through joining our Informer team. Loads of
companies such as MTV, Sky TV, and the Government, want to know your points
of view, and they're prepared to pay you for it - so click here to find out
more. It's all part of the Dubit way of getting young people heard, so don't
be left out of the debate!”
I like the idea of this “cash for questions” so I sign up to be an informer. I
give my e-mail address and a password, my first and last names, my gender
and my age (14). I hit a snag here as they want me to give my parents' full
names, address, phone number and e-mail in order to ask for their permission
because I'm under 16. I do all that, but I also want to get on with earning
some money so I create a new Googlemail account and sign up again as a
16-year-old. I get to the next stage where they want my full address, phone
number and then a host of information about my hobbies and interests. I give
them the lot and then get told that I have to wait to see if I am accepted
as an informer.
By now I really want to belong to this club because it seems pretty exclusive
and hard to get into: major incentives for a precocious 10-year-old. The
next day I get the e-mail. I'm in. I've been approved by the panel. The next
Friday I get my first survey. I have to fill in my gender, age and postcode.
However, I'm then told I can't take part because the quota for my age,
gender or postcode has been filled. Next week I check my e-mails on the
Wednesday (to make sure I don't miss out again) and find another survey. I
rush to the page to find that the survey is now closed. The same thing
happened the next week. I'm feeling rather despondent now. So much for
getting my voice heard.
Three weeks later I (the real Agnes) get a call to let me know that my errant
daughter Angie has signed up with Dubit. (Her sign up as a 14-year-old has
registered on the system.) Did I know? I said I did but didn't know much
about it. I was told that she had signed up to take part in surveys about
things like sports and health. I asked if all the clients were charities or
government organisations. I was told yes, more or less, as Dubit does lots
of government things and also stuff for companies such as Wrigley. I was a
little confused by the link between national policy and chewing gum but the
Dubit representative explained they do surveys of people from age 7 to 25
and that the kids get between 50p and £2. When they get to £25 they get a
cheque. I asked if the whole point of the survey was to get information from
kids and she said that the informer programme was about just that. I asked
where Angie would have heard about Dubit. Most likely recommended by a
friend, came the reply. Would Angie have received anything before I gave my
permission? No.
The representative double-checked that I was happy and I said I was. The next
week, as Angie, I went back on Googlemail and found another three surveys
which I wasn't allowed to take part in. Then I did a recruitment
questionnaire for Barnardo's which asked about whether I had a police record
or regularly attended a Youth Offenders' Centre. I decided to give up.
Dubit has tens of thousands of informers aged from 10 to 24. Every weekend it
runs a survey for its clients (Coke, Nike and some public service
organisations as well) and, indeed, the kids who fill it in are offered
money. However, the drawback of not being able to claim any money until you
have amassed £25 is that some kids have to complete 50 surveys before they
see a penny. And for some surveys kids get absolutely nothing: just entry
into a prize draw. What's more, because not every survey will be relevant to
you, it may be a long, long time before you see any reward. Given Angie's
luck, it may be a very long time before she even gets to fill a survey in,
let alone be paid. However, the kids in there know it's an elite world and
that because Dubit “only allow certain people” to be informers, then the
chances of winning are greater. It's worth hanging on in there: not for the
money, but because it's exclusive. If being an informer is cool, being an
“insider” must be the ultimate. According to Dubit's sales pitch to clients
they “recruit and manage inspiring young people to act as brand ambassadors
or lifestyle representatives for companies and causes across the UK”. By
using these kids, they go on, “we have been successful in creating
believable campaigns that really do have measurable effects on the bottom
line”.
— Consumer Kids: How big business is grooming our children for profit by
Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn is published by Constable & Robinson on January
29 at £8.99. It is available from Times BooksFirst for £8.54, free p&p;
0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst
