Such technology can be used by marketers and advertisers.
Advertisement
In a news release, Schneiderman said a two-year investigation “discovered the websites operated by these companies were home to tracking technology that illegally enabled third-party vendors, such as marketers or advertising companies, to track children’s online activity” in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
While tracking user activity for marketing and advertising purposes is almost ubiquitous on the web, COPPA has prohibited sites that are directed toward children to collect personal information, such as names and email addresses, on kids who are younger than 13 since 1998.
“The way the law is structured, the companies have the primary obligation to police their sites”, Schneiderman said. The investigation “revealed that some of our nation’s biggest companies failed to protect kids’ privacy and shield them from illegal online tracking”.
The companies host many websites popular with children, including sites associated with Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon, Barbie, Hot Wheels and My Little Pony, he said.
“We are rolling out a new, stricter online privacy protection policy for our partners, and enacting new protocols and technology to scan our digital properties for any cookies, widgets or other applications that may violate our policy”, spokeswoman Julie Duffy said.
Hasbro said it cooperated fully with New York’s investigation and has taken steps to improve its websites.
N.Y. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that a host of popular youth-oriented websites were keeping a wrongful eye on children’s internet habits.
The Federal Trade Commission has been working to enforce COPPA, and settled charges with two app developers in December after the FTC alleged that they had allowed third-party advertisers to persistently track child users in apps targeted at kids. Penalties are $500,000 for Viacom, $250,000 for Mattel and $85,000 for JumpStart. In the case of the NY attorney general action, Hasbro’s sites had actually already been deemed compliant through the FTC’s COPPA safe harbor program, but in fact, Hasbro hadn’t disclosed all of its third-party interactions and one of its Nerf ad campaigns involved illegal user tracking.
Advertisement
“We used to worry about our children wandering into bad neighborhoods, now our children live online”, Schneiderman said in a press conference.
