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I wonder if parents can build a strong enough lobby to require (de facto or de jure) some sort of certification to apply to web applications for children?

by krallja 11y ago

JoshTriplett 11y ago
I certainly hope not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
- tzs 11y ago
  Can you elaborate? The article discusses something that actually is dangerous to children, so suggesting considering protecting children from it is not necessarily a "think of the children" appeal to emotion fallacy.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    "Terrorism" is actually dangerous to adults, but despite that, most laws passed to to "prevent terrorism" represent appeals to emotional fallacy. (Not least of which because of its rarity compared to many other day-to-day risks.) In this case, first of all, the parents had the choice to not share their kids' private information with a third-party service to begin with, as alistairSH pointed out in another comment. Evaluate risk and reward before sharing any information. Second, no amount of "certification" will prevent data breaches from happening. Software, like most things, cannot be made 100% safe; the thought that it can would have a chilling effect on all software development. There's a reason the majority of software licenses include prominent disclaimers of warranty, either disclaiming it entirely or limiting it to no more than the price of the software; only the largest software development companies could afford to risk operating otherwise. Attempts to do that kind of thing led to regulations like COPPA, which in practice almost completely prevents children under 13 from using many online services without lying about their age. See the various instances of kids having their gmail or similar Google accounts deleted, as one of numerous examples. Third, people operating under a "think of the children" mentality do not typically allow any kind of tradeoff or middle ground. If any possible measure can be taken, it must be, no matter the cost, risk/reward, or efficacy, you heartless children-hating monster. Naturally, such people are perfectly capable of designing sensible software requirements.
    - jonesb6 11y ago
      It is quite ironic how in the age of helicopter parents most online activity by minors is entirely unsupervised. I'm not advocating some kind of draconic parental filter, just finding the whole thing ironic.. probably because it wasn't my data lost.
alistairSH 11y ago
Or, instead of new laws, parents could decline to use a product that requires sensitive personal information about their children for no good reason.

I wonder if parents can build a strong enough lobby to require (de facto or de jure) some sort of certification to apply to web applications for children?

by krallja 11y ago

I wonder if parents can build a strong enough lobby to require (de facto or de jure) some sort of certification to apply to web applications for children?

JoshTriplett 11y ago

I certainly hope not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children

tzs 11y ago
Can you elaborate? The article discusses something that actually is dangerous to children, so suggesting considering protecting children from it is not necessarily a "think of the children" appeal to emotion fallacy.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  "Terrorism" is actually dangerous to adults, but despite that, most laws passed to to "prevent terrorism" represent appeals to emotional fallacy. (Not least of which because of its rarity compared to many other day-to-day risks.) In this case, first of all, the parents had the choice to not share their kids' private information with a third-party service to begin with, as alistairSH pointed out in another comment. Evaluate risk and reward before sharing any information. Second, no amount of "certification" will prevent data breaches from happening. Software, like most things, cannot be made 100% safe; the thought that it can would have a chilling effect on all software development. There's a reason the majority of software licenses include prominent disclaimers of warranty, either disclaiming it entirely or limiting it to no more than the price of the software; only the largest software development companies could afford to risk operating otherwise. Attempts to do that kind of thing led to regulations like COPPA, which in practice almost completely prevents children under 13 from using many online services without lying about their age. See the various instances of kids having their gmail or similar Google accounts deleted, as one of numerous examples. Third, people operating under a "think of the children" mentality do not typically allow any kind of tradeoff or middle ground. If any possible measure can be taken, it must be, no matter the cost, risk/reward, or efficacy, you heartless children-hating monster. Naturally, such people are perfectly capable of designing sensible software requirements.
  - jonesb6 11y ago
    It is quite ironic how in the age of helicopter parents most online activity by minors is entirely unsupervised. I'm not advocating some kind of draconic parental filter, just finding the whole thing ironic.. probably because it wasn't my data lost.

alistairSH 11y ago

Or, instead of new laws, parents could decline to use a product that requires sensitive personal information about their children for no good reason.