There were a number of stories concerning children’s privacy and safety with mobile apps.Over the summer, Edmodo, the communication platform trusted by parents and teachers alike, ran into trouble when parents found beer ads and a survey for e-cigs lingering around the app. While Edmodo might be the most recognizable name for our audience, they weren’t the only ones accused of showing children inappropriate ads.
And it’s far from just Edmodo. According to a report from Reuters, “A stunning 95 percent of commonly downloaded apps that are marketed to or played by children age five and under contain at least one type of advertising, according to a new report in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. And that goes for the apps labeled as educational, too, researchers say.”
Ads aside, apps have also violated children’s privacy / COPA rules by quietly collecting and sharing children’s data. New Mexico’s AG filed a lawsuit in September accusing Tiny Lab Productions of violating COPPA and accusing Google of misleading consumers by putting these apps in the family section, according to a report in The New York Times. But Apple is not immune. A NYT investigation found iOS apps to be circumventing the rules as well.
“There are massive, at-scale problems with Android apps for children,” said Josh Golin, executive director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a children’s advocacy group in Boston that led the latest complaint along with the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit in Washington. “Google is failing to do the proper vetting of apps in the family section,” he said.”
Google also battled trust issues with educators. In mid-November, Business Insider published a story about growing concerns among teachers that Google’s offer to schools to help in the classroom could be an effort to line up future customers as much as it is to help schools
RSS Feed of News Items