NY settles with 4 companies to stop tracking children online

Viacom Inc., Mattel Inc. and other companies will stop allowing third parties to track children’s online activities in a deal with New York’s top cop over data pulled from popular websites directed at kids under 13 years old. The websites are owned by Viacom, Mattel, Jumpstart and Hasbro. But they were all contracting with advertising vendors that performed some type of persistent monitoring for targeted ads.

“Any time we become aware of a question about whether a Mattel-operated website is in full compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or other laws, we take prompt action to investigate and, if necessary, remedy the situation and look for additional controls to avoid a re-occurrence”, spokesman Alex Clark said.

The companies were tracking what kids wanted on websites for popular toys like Barbie, My Little Pony, and Hot Wheels.

Four media companies agreed to a $835,000 settlement for knowingly tracking children online, which is illegal in the United States.

We have cooperated fully with the New York Attorney General’s office on the investigation and welcomed the opportunity to bolster our privacy practices in connection with today’s settlement.

The tracking software is used by third-party firms that collect the information and sell it to advertisers, he said.

All the companies agreed to similar reforms, according to Schneiderman’s statement.

Federal law prohibits the unauthorized collection of children’s personal information on websites aimed at children under age 13. 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. 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.

Tracking adults is legal, he said, “pretty much open season” for advertisers. The last thing we need is a more industrialized form of commercial tracking, eroding Americans’ privacy from childhood on.