Online Privacy

     Privacy isn’t officially protected by law.  Once something gets posted to the Internet, it remains in the public domain, forever.  The Internet makes everything so instant, so permanent; is it really safe to allow our youth to use it so willingly?

            
     According to an article from The Washington Post, published back in September; http://www.washingtonpost.com,“In this era of technological change, kids are often tech savvy but judgment poor.”

            
     I think this is entirely true.  There are so many ways for children to access the Internet nowadays; it’s all they’re every doing.  This is contributing to many negative effects.  The physical health of our nation is at its worst and children, now, are even mistaking “text talk” for actual English.  Some don’t even notice that they’re doing it.  But the reality is that kids are failing spelling tests left and right because they mistakenly spelled “through” like “thru,” just as they would in a text message.

            
     In the article I posted above, it discusses the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new plan to bump-up Internet privacy for children.  The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, nicknamed “COPPA,” was first established in 1998.  Now, the FTC wants the act to cover all evolving technologies, like the web, IPods and smart phones.

            
     Younger children are so prone to business advertisements on these devices, too.  They’ll give any personal information out at the drop of a hat, simply to access their favorite video game or song.  They have no knowledge of hackers and cookies and hackers know that.

            
     The new FTC rules would require parental consent before children give out any personal information to businesses and would offer many different ways for parents to receive that consent.  Operators would also then have to provide proof that they could keep the child’s information completely private.  They would no longer be able to track any child’s geographical location or information and cookies wouldn’t be allowed to track their web browsing. 

            
     This may make dozens of advertisers angry, but we’re living in a world of marketing and advertising.  Just take a look at the picture below: 

Photo taken by James Porto. Website: http://www.jamesporto.com/

     This is exactly the kind of world we're living in and it's only getting worse.  Notice the man's frustrated look in the rearview mirror; if he's that annoyed by all the ads, just imagine what they're doing to kids.  

     The FTC hopes that the new COPPA rules will help parents better protect their children, without putting too much burden on businesses.  Written comments on the proposal must be submitted to the FTC no later than Nov. 28th.