0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
The KlaasKids Foundation on Thursday unveiled a new set of free online services parents can use to preserve the online privacy of their mobile Relevant Products/Services-device-using children.Chief among the new tools is free access to a powerful Do Not Track tool, Cocoon for KlaasKids, that empowers parents to deflect and block tracking mechanisms triggered by Web sites and mobile-device apps catering to children 13 and under.Web sites run by Facebook, Disney, Nickelodeon and McDonald's, among others, along with the data Relevant Products/Services-collecting activities of information Relevant Products/Services giants Google and Acxiom, have led to the pervasive online tracking of children, say child safety and privacy advocates.The online advertising and marketing industries amass information about gender, age, preferences, favorite online activities and even physical location, via GPS services on smartphones and touch tablets, says Vernon Irvin, CEO of Virtual World Computing, developer of Cocoon.While the commercial motivation is to build brand loyalty, the data being collected about kids' online activities can also easily be tapped by identity thieves and child predators."Children are prevalent Internet users, even at an early age, and they are more vulnerable than adults to online tracking, because they are by nature more trusting," Irvin says.As advertisers, app developers and privacy advocates continue to wage the national Do Not Track debate, a big part of the burden to protect their kids online falls on parents."Parents need to talk to their kids about the birds and the bees -- and about being safe on mobile," says Kevin Mahaffey, CTO at mobile-security firm Lookout.Parents' due diligence starts with familiarizing themselves with products and services, many of them free, available through child online-safety initiatives. Cocoon for KlaasKids, for instance, works by hiding the true Internet address of the PC, iPhone or iPad a child might use to access the Internet. Cocoon also prevents the child's device from being inundated with tracking cookies and ensures the anonymity of the user.The free service does not currently work on Android Relevant Products/Services mobile devices nor Windows 8 smartphones or touch tablets. Those versions are under development.
