The underlying concern, for both the industry and regulators, is
about the data collection and data mining mechanisms that facilitate
digital marketing on apps and Web sites for children.
Washington is pushing Silicon Valley on children's privacy, and
Silicon Valley is pushing back.
Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter have all objected
to portions of a government effort to strengthen online privacy
protections for children. In addition, media giants like Viacom and
Disney, cable operators, marketing associations, technology groups
and a trade group representing toy makers are arguing that the
Federal Trade Commission's proposed rule changes seem so onerous
that rather than enhance online protections for children, they
threaten to deter companies from offering children's Web sites and
services altogether.
"If adopted, the effect of these new rules would be to slow the
deployment of applications that provide tremendous benefits to
children and to slow the economic growth and job creation generated
by the app economy," Catherine A. Novelli, vice president of
worldwide government affairs at Apple, wrote in comments to the
agency.
But the underlying concern, for both the industry and regulators,
is not so much about online products for children themselves. It is
about the data collection and data mining mechanisms that facilitate
digital marketing on apps and Web sites for children -- and a debate
over whether these practices could put children at greater risk.
In 1998, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection
Act in an effort to give parents control over the collection and
dissemination of private information about their children online.
The regulation, known as Coppa, requires Web site operators to
obtain a parent's consent before collecting personal details, like a
home address or e-mail address, for a child younger than 13.
Now, U.S. regulators are preparing to update that rule, arguing
that it has not kept pace with advances like online behavioral
advertising, a practice that uses data mining to tailor advertising
to people's online behavior. The F.T.C. wants to expand the types of
data whose collection requires prior parental permission to include
persistent identification systems, like unique device codes or
customer code numbers stored in cookies, if those codes are used to
track children online for advertising purposes.
The idea is to preclude companies from compiling dossiers on the
online activities -- and by extension the health, socioeconomic
status, race or romantic concerns -- of individual children across
the Web over time.
"What children post online or search as part of their homework
should not haunt them as they apply to colleges or for jobs,"
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and co-
chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, said in a
recent phone interview. "YouTube should not be turned into
YouTracked."
The agency's proposals have provoked an intense reaction from
some major online operators, television networks, social networks,
app platforms and advertising trade groups. Some argue that the
F.T.C. has overstepped its mandate in proposing to expand the rule's
scope greatly. Others say that using identification systems like
customer code numbers to track children "anonymously" online is
