Apps, social networks pose new threat to kids

The Federal Trade Commission last month announced a $50,000 settlement with app maker W3 Innovations for collecting and dispersing information of kids under 13 in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act, or COPPA.

Earlier this year the FTC wrested a record $3 million settlement from online game developer Playdom, now a division of Disney, for similar COPPA violations.

Child-safety advocates say identity thieves and pedophiles have begun taking advantage of youngsters’ increasing infatuation with mobile devices and Web apps.

“Children are using these services more and more, opening themselves up to more information disclosures,” says Andrew Serwin, chairman of the privacy practice at law firm Foley Lardner. “And there’s more and more mobile services directed to children, as well.”

W3 Innovations published Emily’s Girl World, Emily’s Dress Up and Emily’s Runway High Fashion, online services which encouraged kids to create virtual models and outfits and e-mail a fictitious character named Emily with comments and blog posts. Apple iPhone and iPad users downloaded Emily apps more than 50,000 times.

“We want to make it crystal clear, to app developers and to others in this new mobile space, that we believe the protection under COPPA is not platform specific,” says David Vladeck, director of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau. “If you can’t do it online, you can’t do it in an app.”

FTC staff is hammering out revisions to COPPA rules likely to include different guidelines for verifying parental permission for kids to use certain apps, and specific rules to protect children using Internet-connected mobile devices, Serwin says.

Meanwhile, more children than ever are using mobile devices and spending longer hours socializing online and and using cool Web apps designed to gather data in support of selling advertising.

A recent survey by anti-virus firm AVG found roughly half of children ages 6 through 9 regularly interact with friends online, yet 58% of their parents admitted to not being knowledgeable about social networks.

Rising commercial pressures for kids to get online add to already intense peer pressures, says Hanan Lavy, CEO of child security software maker United Parents.

Facebook is open to those 13 or older, though a recent Consumer Reports survey found 7.5 million Facebook users 12 and under. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he would like to formally extend Facebook to kids.

“The risks to children from social networking at an early age are numerous,” Lavy says. “As pedophiles become more technologically sophisticated, they’re able to find and connect with kids easier than with previous methods.”

More time spent online also means higher risk of children getting exposed to inappropriate content and advertising. Identity thieves target minors’ names and Social Security numbers to create bogus credit accounts with a lower likelihood of getting discovered.

Useful guides for protecting kids online:

http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/net-cetera.aspx

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Facebook vs. Google+: the duel to be king of the social network

Ever since the popularization of the social media network Facebook a few years back, ousting Myspace as the social network leader, there have been no true contenders that have been able to draw the attention of the masses as easily.

A new attempt from Google, known as Google Plus or Google+, has ventured on an undertaking of changing how social networking is viewed today, and it is starting to make Facebook nervous. But does it have any reason to?

Beginning a few months ago, Google, the search engine leader by far, set out on a mission to create the largest social networking website around. They created a small testing group of the website and allowed users to begin sending out a small number of invites to their friends.

Google+ uses the same sort of basic networking tools as Facebook, such as a news feed, but also offers many different and unique features. The largest difference is the introduction of circles, which allows people to distinguish their contacts by various groups. Updates, photos, and anything else can be shared with specific circles and left out of others, and in essence is the solution for the frustration experienced by every student who has their parents as a Facebook friend.

Other features include better photo sharing, and “hangouts,” a feature that gives the ability to set up a time for a group video or text chat with people in your circles.

Shortly after the introduction of Google+, Facebook feeds were swamped with status updates of people claiming that they were going to quit Facebook and use Google+ entirely, and invited all of their friends to join them. Even today, although to a much lesser extent, these updates still pop up in Sonoma State students Facebook feeds.

Strangely however, these same people still update and check their Facebook accounts, leading people to wonder whether or not Google+ is an actual threat.

In an effort to determine the full extent of the damage that Google+ made on Facebook, I decided to begin a search for people who used both networks.

Surprisingly though, my searches came up largely empty. Every single person that I found who even used both programs said that they used Facebook and never even touched their Google+ account.

Stephanie Long, a senior at SSU, explained that the reason that she never made the switch over, or uses her Google+ account in general, was because nobody that she knew was on it.

This response of social dislocation is the only one I received in my search, so the question still then remains whether or not this is really indicative of the population of the majority.

As Google+ becomes more open to the public, things may however soon change. 

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