The dramatic growth of the data broker industry, fueled by  information on consumers culled from the Internet, social media, mobile phones, and in-store shopping,  has created a multitude of all seeing eyes spying on Americans everyday.  A digital gold mine of infinite details is harvested about each of us--what we buy, who are friends are, how much we earn, our ethnicity, health concerns, location, etc.   For the most part, these records are off limits to consumers, who can't really discover what they say about us--including the likely errors they may contain.  

Center for Digital Democracy Charges that Nickelodeon’s Mobile SpongeBob Game
Violates the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act

Urges Federal Trade Commission to Investigate and Bring Action Against the Leading Children’s Cable Channel

Nickelodeon and PlayFirst Don’t Play Fair,
Collecting Personal Information from Kids and Inducing In-Game Purchases

Washington, DC: The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) filed a complaint today with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calling for an investigation of and action against the Mobbles Corporation for operating the mobile application Mobbles in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Mobbles, a game involving virtual pets, is directed at children under age 13. It collects personal information from children without providing any notice to parents (nor even attempting to obtain verifiable parental consent), as required by law.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects children's privacy online.  It is a powerful safeguard empowering parents to make decisions about how personal information from their child can be collected and used.  As the Federal Trade Commission nears its historic vote to ensure that COPPA addresses the range of digital data collection practices that threaten child privacy--including from behavioral profiling and geo-location targeting--here's a brief primer.

CDD and EPIC submitted this letter to the FTC today.  Both groups have had a long history of monitoring Facebook's privacy and online data-related marketing practices.  We have both worked to ensure that the FTC and other regulators engage in the due diligence required to ensure Facebook respects the privacy rights of its users.

This letter was sent today to Lawrence Strickling, Ass't Sec of Commerce, as well as The White House.  Despite our best efforts to encourage the Commerce Department to ensure that people across the country can meaningfully participate in the first key stakeholder meeting scheduled for 12 July, the agency has failed to embrace an effective means to do so.  Over the last few weeks we did get the Commerce people to change their plans to allow some outside of the Beltway involvement--but in a very limited way.  The groups previously submitted a

Today we filed Comments on the Obama Administration's privacy plan via the Dep't of Commerce proceeding. Highlights below.