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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Woobo is a cuddly interactive toy that talks to kids. Also, it records their conversations.
It's a source of anxiety for any parent: getting rid of your child's beloved toy.
That's exactly what regulators in Germany told citizens to do with My Friend Cayla. And it wasn't enough to just throw Cayla away; parents actually had to destroy the blonde, peppy-looking doll.
The smart toy, which records conversations with kids, fell into the category of "hidden espionage devices," according to the regulators. My Friend Cayla was accused of asking children personal questions, like their favorite shows and toys, and saving the data to send to a third-party company that also makes voice identification products for police.
Just a day after the German ban was announced, Toy Fair kicked off in New York -- and smart toys were all over the place. Teddy Ruxpin, the storytelling bear beloved by '80s babies, returned with a high-tech makeover, as did Hologram Barbie, a voice-assistant animated sequel to the controversial Hello Barbie. Toy Fair also featured smart toy newcomers like Woobo, essentially a cuddly version of the Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers.
The contrasts illustrate the fine line between protecting one's privacy and the desire to create compelling and engaging products. It's the same broader debate that's raging throughout the technology and consumer electronics world, with companies like Google hoovering up personal data to better serve you ads. Only this time, the issue affects impressionable children.
Smart toys are a multibillion-dollar industry that's only getting larger as more kids are growing up connected and clamoring for the next high-tech distraction. Parents are flocking to connected toys for tots, with one research firm predicting that revenue for smart toys will reach $8.8 billion by 2020.
The booming market could be blowing up even faster if only children's online privacy concerns weren't in the way, members of the toy industry lamented at Toy Fair. While parents are looking out for their kids' safety and privacy, toymakers say data collection is necessary to make the next generation's iconic toy.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, passed in 1998, requires companies targeting kids under 13 to get consent from parents before collecting personal information from children, as well as allowing parents to review any data a company collects on their kids. The data also must be deleted within 30 days of its use. COPPA's author, Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, questioned the makers of My Friend Cayla about potential violations of the act "given the sensitive nature of children's recorded speech."
The toy industry, unsurprisingly, takes a different view.
"To take smart toys to the next level of engagement and give kids what they want, you have to take data and create an engaging experience that's connected to their friends and based on their persona," said Krissa Watry, CEO of Dynepic, the company behind iOKids, a social media platform for children and their parents.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:48PM (5 children)
maybe if you degenerate scum didn't violate the trust parents put in you (every single time, with your disrespect, greed and stupidity) someone would let you do your precious datamining.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)
the company behind iOKids, a marketing platform targeting children and their parents
Pretending that marketing platforms are for interacting with your peers, rather than big data-mining operations that happen to include a little bit of communication functionality, is the root cause of a lot of these problems.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:01PM
If it would be only data collecting agencies, maybe the harm would be lesser.
But it's much worse - they are in fact aggressively pushing products/services on anyone interacting with them.
"Do you have disposable income? Then you can waste it on comicons, consumer electronics, etc; planned obsolescence in general.
You don't have disposable income? Then fast-food and predatory loans are for you."
If today's adults can't see beyond this smoke screen, do you expect the next generation will be more able to do it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday February 27 2017, @12:17AM
This reminds me so much of the breathless rush to push RFID into retail a few years ago. Visions of a utopia where Customer X walks into a store and is identified by the RFID in his clothes. The sales staff being given a quick summary of all of X's purchases for the past few months, so they can walk up and suggest that these shoes might match those pants you bought 4 weeks ago. X deciding to buy them and simply walking out of the store with them - the shoes' RFID and the customer's existing RFID linked to his account taking care of the rest. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm willing to give the toy manufacturers the benefit of the doubt that they are not being actively evil, but simply hopelessly shortsighted about the pitfalls and unintended consequences of tracking a child's conversations and using that to directly market back to them. But this is a prime example of why we need customer protection and privacy laws, and why you can't just "let the market sort itself out".
It's really sad that these manufacturers feel the need to "take things to the next level" at all though. Some of the more recent smash hits in kids toys have been completely inanimate (e.g. Shopkins, Loom Bands), so I don't agree that it takes a supercomputer to entertain a 3 year old.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday February 27 2017, @02:32PM (1 child)
Part of the problem here is it only takes one bad apple to ruin it for everyone. Even if the company is completely honestly doing all the right things (keeping data secure, not abusing their access, protecting users' interests, etc) they only need a single person with the right access to come along and sell all of that data or leak it or lose it or whatever to completely ruin it. It doesn't even have to have been a malicious action.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 27 2017, @05:20PM
If you collect the data, someone will see it as an asset to generate money.
No ifs, buts, or maybes ...