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: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:05PM (2 children)
If we can't monetize your kids, then what good are they?
Watch for it in the near future: all the tech industries are going to either find ways around the laws protecting children, or they'll just buy off congress.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by moondoctor on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:45PM
It's wild. The only thing that will turn the tide is common decency and respect for each other. Don't look like that's happening anytime soon. I'm not talking kumbaya shit, just plain old decency. You don't have to like your adversaries, but you do have to be civil or you end up with a damned cheeto driving the country over a cliff. The current social and business climate that creates stories like this one is equally the fault of the left and the right.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:34PM
Maybe they'll buy the US congress, but that's about all the law-makers they'll buy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:33PM (4 children)
Instead setting up your children to chat with shitty corporate/NSA AI engines, TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN YOURSELF...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:02PM (2 children)
We've tried that. That's why the world is in such a shitty state. You get a lot of poorly educated yokels going on about how terrible the gubmint is and how if you work really hard you too can be one of the greedy bastards at the top that's stealing from everybody else.
We don't need more parents talking to their kids, we need fewer kids being indoctrinated by their idiot parents.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:44PM
oh yeah, it's the little guy's fault. you probably work for the government, the kings of theft and murder.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @05:52PM
Very true. We also do not need kids being indoctrinated and propagandized in the education system when they should be learning and polishing real critical-thinking skills so they can think and decide for themselves, on their own.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:27PM
Do you not have kids?
"mom/dad I want toy xyz"
"sure if you do your chores"
"did my chores for a month can i have toy xyz"
"here you go"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Kilo110 on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:46PM
Will Arnold Schwarzenegger be out of a job now?
(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 ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:31PM (4 children)
Instead of destroying the toy. Here is a crazy idea. Yank the battery and cut the power line so it can not be repaired easily. Toy still intact. Child still has toy.
Toys for children are one of several categories. These talking interactive toys tend to be of the status symbol type toys (for both the children and parents). They are expensive and children like to lord them over each other. "I got the blahblahblah toy what do you have?" "I dont have that" "sucks to be YOU I have one!" The parental version of that conversation is about the same.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by butthurt on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:48PM (2 children)
> Yank the battery and cut the power line so it can not be repaired easily. Toy still intact.
You'd be taking away its ability, not only to listen, but to move and to speak. It would become a lifeless, inert, inanimate object. Only when the child moved it would it move. Only in the child's imagination would it speak or listen. The child would have to expend more effort in playing with the toy, therefore it would be a less "engaging experience."
You might want to put epoxy in the battery holder or in the charging port, for good measure.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darnkitten on Monday February 27 2017, @04:12AM (1 child)
Today, I saw a five-year-old girl conversing with her stuffed kitten, a wooden riding-horse, and her sister (who, from all indications, was the least responsive of the three, due to playing on her Kindle).
During that time, she also, apparently, was imprisoned, escaped from the prison, lost a shoe (she may have been a horse at the time), managed to eat a sticky, chocolate-glazed doughnut over the course of a half-hour without getting chocolate on furniture or clothing (a white frock, no less), and stole her sister's Kindle during a moment of distraction, (but couldn't play on it, due to the password protection).
-
I tell ya, seeing a kid using basic security on an electronic device restored my faith in humanity.
I know, the concepts "Kindle" and "Security" don't go together...just roll with it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @07:11AM
So in a year you're going to marry her, just like Muhammed did?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 27 2017, @02:20AM
Works for me, but the mere existence of a surveillance device such as this toy violates the law in Germany. After the hubbub dies down, and everyone else in the country has destroyed their toys, you will not want to be seen in possession of that toy, or anything similar. Someone will ask questions, that someone will talk, and the cops will eventually come knocking. I haven't looked to see how expensive this toy is, but the penalty for violating such an edict will be a lot more expensive. That penalty may even include some jail or prison time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:11PM
there is no "fine line" here. making engaging toys doesn't require voice recognition and even if it did, there's no excuse for keeping voiceprints and identifyable data.
Speech recognition can be done locally using a modern smart phone but Google/Apple/Amazon and the rest are in the surveillence business now, not the IT business.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday February 27 2017, @05:33PM
Kids are not clamoring for high-tech distractions. Kids are clamoring for whatever the manipulative advertising has convinced them they want. This is no different than wanting a Tickle-Me-Elmo to a kid. It's not even substantially different to parents, other than the "wow" factor. But I can tell you that as a parent, I bemoan the fact that toys these days seem to be legally required to contain annoying superfluous voice boxes. Toys that would be more fun if they didn't have a 2-second sound that went off every time it moves a micron. In much the same way, "smart" toys are just a scheme to make sure everybody has to buy not just batteries, but internet services.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?