Child-safety software sells your kids' IM conversations to market-research companies

[Matariki]

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids' online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children's chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i5CjgMEdrwRm3JxeglUykMAHAYmAD9AGNVM00


http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/07/child-safety-softwar.html

[virgogal]

1. Scary stuff!

[orpupilofnature57]

2. But no!!!! Don't let the leader of the free world ,first in his class at Harvard,

Don't for all that tis dear and precious ,subject them to that.

[rrneck]

3. Look around you.

Everyone you see has a pumpjack between their shoulder blades. It makes me want to run off to the woods and hide.

It never ends, this shit.

[Chemisse]

4. That is just sick.

I can't understand how that can be legal.

[ThomCat]

5. It shouldn't be legal.

But I'm sure that it probably is. Because they voluntarily installed this software, and it's probably disclosed in the small print somewhere, it's a matter of "let the buyer beware." Caveat Emptor

:(