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Kids’ Apps Are Crammed With Ads

• hpwrg 8y ago
  I have no children, but I have seen a child in a loop of ads on a tablet. She was so fustrated, and no way to help her but to explain how the world works to a 4y old. The whole play store is deceiving, and no way for children to learn except trough frustration.
• quickthrower2 8y ago
  I can see why, babies are going to accidently click ads making more money for the developer.
• taurath 8y ago
  So is the New York Times app, and I’m paying for it. Not much longer though - they’ve now got autoplaying video.
  • dawnerd 8y ago
    Good luck trying to cancel. They’re pretty clingy... Expect to get spammed with “please come offers” every single day.
    • taurath 8y ago
      I’d gladly pay more if they offered an ad free experience. I’m fine telling them so over the phone.
    • Rjevski 8y ago
      Raise a dispute/chargeback with your card issuer. The only way to make them stop this bullshit is to hit them where it hurts and increase their dispute percentage to dangerous levels where their acquirer bank threatens to drop them.
  • mikestew 8y ago
    The NYT app was one of the primary reasons I installed a Pi-Hole. According to my wife, it works on games, too. For $35 and a half hour of typing and progress bars, a Pi-Hole should be included in those take-home bags they give to new parents.
• rvanmil 8y ago
  There is a bigger problem here and that is a lot of parents either ignore or simply don’t see the problem. Friends think I’m weird because I carefully curate apps for my 3yo son and have banned youtube. This problem also exists on iOS but I don’t think it’s as bad as described in this article. I’ve realised quite a while ago that Google really doesn’t give a shit about your kids being confronted with inappropriate content.
  • r_singh 8y ago
    I'm only 24 and I'm already afraid of how I'll manage technology consumption once I have kids. Unfortunately your friends are naive, the problem you're trying to solve for your 3yo is one of most important problems parents are facing right now in the digital age (I believe it to be so big because most people like your friends aren't aware of the repercussions).
  • 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
    YouTube is so incredibly shit house these days. There are a few interesting channels, but otherwise I may as well be watching regular tv. The suggestions I get are also incredibly bad.
  • jmvoodoo 8y ago
    My wife and I both have Andoid phones. Whenever we get a new device removing YouTube is the first thing we do. We have a small list of paid puzzle games we install. And for the limited video time the kids get PBS Video which is great. We don't let the kids watch Netflix or any other video apps because their "kids" programming is absolute garbage if not openly hostile toward children. You're not weird.
    • move-on-by 8y ago
      I just installed PBS Video on my iPhone and opened up my pi-hole to see what types of DNS requests it was making. Among regular PBS domains are: * ssl.google-analytics.com (tracking) * pagead2.googlesyndication.com (a google ad domain) * pubads.g.doubleclick.net (another google ad domain) * sb.scorecardresearch.com (tracking) * imasdk.googleapis.com (The Google IMA SDK for ads within a video) * localization.services.pbs.org (perhaps this one is benign) From their Privacy Policy [1]: > We also may share aggregated or anonymized information with third parties, including to help us develop content and services that we hope you or your child will find of interest or to help these third parties develop their own products and service offerings. The above paragraph with the associated list of domains being used above screams targeting to me > We may allow third parties to place and read their own cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect information through the Services. So they let 3rd parties do whatever they want. The full privacy policy is followed with an example use case of how its helpful and useful, but just like Facebook's privacy policy the examples are misdirection. [1] https://pbskids.org/privacy/ https://pbskids.org/privacy/
• Rainymood 8y ago
  "Free" is the ultimate pricing tool. No one can argue or make anything cheaper than free and those with audiences and ad revenue (Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram) already have the eyeballs to make free worth it. Smaller developers, studios, companies, can hardly compete with these apps because free always trumps paying, even if it's only $0.01. The willingness of people to open their wallet and vote with their wallet is the direct cause of this mess. I have to be truly honest here and say I am guilty of this as well. Paying for a game? Good luck unless I truly know it's going to be great (Overwatch, for example). Let me try it out for free, and fund it with cosmetic micro-transactions.
  • glenneroo 8y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your point about big vs small companies. The article states: "In Olaf’s Adventures, published by Disney, clicking on a glowing cake that is not marked as an ad takes the player to a store; Disney is not hurting for money, so why are they employing similarly devious tactics? The problem is obviously not just with "smaller developers, studios and companies".
    • Rainymood 8y ago
      Smaller and more frequent micro-transactions have been the norm rather than the exceptions. Micro-transaction and lootboxs, this is the world we live in. If we want to change it we have to vote with our wallets.
• dnohr 8y ago
  Airplane mode is the safest option for when our 3yo kiddo play games on the iPad. Unless the app is paid for, it most likely will be full of sketchy ways to make the kids press on ads.
  • StapleHorse 8y ago
    This. It works and it is the only way I can run apps in my oldish tablet. If it's connected while running many apps it slows down to a crowl.
• social_quotient 8y ago
  I’m so glad this topic has come up. I have a young child with some apple devices. Apple has a feature where the child can request permission to download an app, I can approve or not. This is great... but it would be awesome if I could approve with “ads off”, I don’t mind taking the $$ hit on install. What infuriates me is finding out 3 days later that my kid is either being distracted non stop to an unplayable level with ads or trading eyeball time to watch in app videos in exchange for some monetary system to be used in game play. What I can’t stand, when it comes to kids, is when I have to become an expert at X to be able to trust that something is a safe environment for a child. I have to actually check the game, play it, figure out its incentive protocol and then buy the ads away. Some games sell the ads away but still have incentives to purposefully sell your time watching a video to get more points / currency. Here is what I want. I want a way to trial a game without ads. If I like the game I’ll buy it for $1-$20 just like I would in a physical store. Then it’s my game no ads or weird economic models. If the game maker “needs” recurring money to provide the game play then eat me signup for a subscription like I would on Netflix. I want a straightforward way to own the game or at least use it like I own it (SaaS like)
  • r_singh 8y ago
    Your comment makes me wish there was a way for parents to curate the appstore for their kids.
    • setquk 8y ago
      There is and I do it. I play the game the first time. If I’m not happy it gets removed.
      • r_singh 8y ago
        Kudos to you, wish there was an easier way though!
        • setquk 8y ago
          It's fun playing the games so it's win win ;)
• cauldron 8y ago
  Get a router that supports dnsmasq, you can block most of ads, although it's easy to evade, you can't really control the kids when they are able to do that. That way you can also get rid of the hundreds of companies eager to know what you did on the internet. I have a hosts file that consists of 15000+ lines of blocked domains, accreddited to the inability of wildcards of Windows.
  • mverwijs 8y ago
    Perhaps check out pi-hole.net.
• sureaboutthis 8y ago
  My kids grew up when all these things started coming about. My biggest regret is introducing my oldest to computer games because it distracted him away from me cause I ran my business out of my home and he always wanted to be with me. It has affected him in a negative way that I still see today as he turned 30.
• bezeka 8y ago
  We can`t escape the digitalization. But we can set an example for our kids. Allow them to have some TV or tablet time, while also showing them that there is also a whole other world out there. Nature, board games, outdoor games, books etc. Stimulating imagination.
• kenhwang 8y ago
  As someone working in advertising, I wonder how many of these apps and advertisers are in violation of COPPA. We have so much annoying code scrubbing so much information from users we suspect or discover to be children. We really don't want to advertise to children, they're absolutely awful for any meaningful non-impression metric for the advertiser. But there are definitely ad networks that are more than happy to turn a blind eye to serving ads to children.
  • bulditand 8y ago
    > We really don't want to advertise to children, they're absolutely awful for any meaningful non-impression metric for the advertiser. Yeah, that's the reason not to advertise to children!
• whywhywhywhy 8y ago
  Just a thought but maybe if parents were willing to spend enough money for developers to make a living then they wouldn't need to resort to ads and IAP to make a living. Often bring this up when I see people angry over how much their child spent in a random freemium app and the anger and vitriol they spew back at you is nuts, because they want their kids entertained for free with no catch. High quality entertainment exists for kids out there, Nintendo Switch, Toca Boca tablet apps, etc. But yeah it actually costs dollars.
  • josefresco 8y ago
    I pay for Netflix (no ads) and YouTube premium which also removes ads. I also pay for basic cable (loads of ads). However, Google still finds a way to show me and my kids ads. This is the problem. Even when I'm willing to (and do) pay to remove ads, the addiction and greed shown by content creators and delivery services is too powerful. They always find exceptions.
    • taormina 8y ago
      Each individual app developer is making this particular decision, not Google. If you think apps should be free, this is what happens. Pay for your apps, and you shouldn't be subjected to advertisements. This is why I've historically refused to go back to Hulu (you don't get to double dip AND keep me as a customer).
• thomasfedb 8y ago
  Beware the generation who are raised by phone addicts. Attachment and rearing requires active involvement — even from a distance. When your toddler looks back at you to check that they're okay, to see if they're still safe, you'd better meet their gaze. Look up from your phones and watch, else your toddler will stop looking back. I'm a medical student on psychiatry rotation, and this stuff scares me big time.
  • TaupeRanger 8y ago
    This is nonsense. Our ancestors only survived because they could be doing all kinds of stuff (you know, stuff that was necessary to survive) while the kids were playing around and keeping themselves busy. Children are more capable than we give them credit for. It's about making your interactions meaningful when you have them, not staring at them all the time. This is the kind of mindset that makes children grow up to be anxiety-ridden young adults. The studies show that emotional trauma (i.e. NOT "dad was looking at his phone when I bumped my head and wasn't staring directly at me", but actual trauma) causes problems in adolescence and adulthood. But most parenting within the normal range just does not matter. At all. Take a look at The Nurture Assumption, or read a primer: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/parenting-doesnt-matter-that-muchas-long-as-you-dont-do-anything-super-weird.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/parenting-doesnt-ma...
    • thomasfedb 8y ago
      I'm talking about toddlers, who definitely do need and seek reassurance as they explore the boundaries of their expanding world. As kids develop they need less and more distant supervision, but it is still important. Childhood neglect is demonstrably associated with borderline personality disorder, for example. Interaction is good for children, and it's not the same as helicoptering. It's far better for a kid to talk to their parent than for the kid to play Angry Birds on the iPad while their parent sits on Facebook. I'm not suggesting a bit of parental phone time is going to mess your kids up for life, but I won't be surprised if the era of personal screens for everybody produces some fun personality traits now and then.
  • athenot 8y ago
• guelo 8y ago
  > Google Play “discloses whether an app has advertising or in-app purchases Yea but I can't search for apps without ads or in-app purchase, can I scumbags? I have to scroll through the algorithmically sorted list and click into each app page because you are evil people that sold your souls for that six figure salary and free cafeteria food.
  • gpm 8y ago
    I don't install new apps often, but the last time I was looking for something the yalp store (Open source google play wrapper) could filter out things with ads or in app purchases.
• kalleboo 8y ago
  In Europe, TV advertising to children is in often heavily regulated (sometimes even to zero). In addition, in many countries you have the option of the public broadcaster with no ads. It seems like a matter of time until app stores get regulated in the same way. Anyone know if the BBC et.al. have any good kids games?
  • r_singh 8y ago
    An an Indian, I'm grateful for the existence of the EU for advocating the more ethical path in regulating the ills that capitalism introduces inevitably.
  • samwillis 8y ago
    Yes, I have a 4yo and we only allow the BBC apps and videos, all ad free and mostly have an educational direction: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-apps https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-app...
• radoslawc 8y ago
  This might be unpopular opinion, but whatever happened with paper and crayons? Or Legos? I can understand how it can be tempting to have few quiet hours after work, giving your young ones tablet of phone to watch this specially crafted media to attract their attention (and show them ads as it turns out), but I don't believe it's healthy for young organism to stare blankly on screen 10 inches from face with worse possible head position (almost always bent forward). My friend said once, that she's so grateful for technology advancement, that she doesn't know how she would manage to change diapers without tablet.
  • apexalpha 8y ago
    >but I don't believe it's healthy for young organism to stare blankly on screen 10 inches from face with worse possible head position (almost always bent forward). People used to say the same thing to me on my PlayStation 1. Relax, technology is a part of our lifes.
    • wilsonnb3 8y ago
      Perhaps they were right.
      • apexalpha 8y ago
        I think that since we're all IT people here that stare at screens 8 hours a day that it's fine. Not saying kids should do it, but screens being unhealthy to the eyes is not one of them, it's a social problem.
  • ArrayList 8y ago
    > young organism What the hell?
  • watwut 8y ago
    Many kids don't like drawing. Drawing is not possible in many situations where tablet is possible. Ditto lego plus, there is not that much lego for under 5 years old. You don't get few quiet hours of work with tablet. You might get peaceful car ride or waiting for doctor etc.
• Proven 8y ago
  Take charge, lazy bastards! Should the government take care of your remote controller, devices and kids?
• ohazi 8y ago
  Instead of giving kids an iPad / Android device, what about giving them a lightweight Linux laptop / tablet so they can play games and watch YouTube with an ad blocker? The complaints are the same every time this issue comes up: "I wish I could pay to turn off the ads." This isn't going to happen. Take control of your computer and get rid of the ads yourself.
  • saagarjha 8y ago
    Linux just doesn’t have the polish that an iPad does. There are very few, if any, games, and it’s not really a good fit for younger children.
    • ndnxhs 8y ago
      The computer most of us had as a kid was a hell of a lot less polished than a modern Linux system.
      • saagarjha 8y ago
        You can give a two year old an iPad and they can figure it out. I doubt you were using a computer at that age. There is an age at which it’s possible to introduce Linux computers, it it might quite young, but I think it’s quite later than the average age that one can grasp how to use an iPad.
        • quadrangle 8y ago
          Two year olds should NOT have iPads or any such devices, period.
          • saagarjha 8y ago
            Disagree. It's entirely possible to introduce children to iPads as an introductory device. Should you give them unrestricted access to the internet and App Store? Probably not. But load up a couple of high-quality apps, and you can make it a very good tool for learning.
• wavewash 8y ago
  We've recently released an app on iOS that has ads and is aimed at a younger audience. We have an option to remove the ads and it comes with an added ability to put a childlock on in app messaging. Later when we add a store into the app we will add features to lock it further because we want to do right by our customers who we hope include parents of kids. What I didn't expect was the slump in sales we make from ad removal offerings. We make more money from the ads than from purchases of ad removal. I see a lot of folks say "I'll pay for a no ads experience" but the reality is most folks will continue to use the app with the ads even when the option to remove them exists. Adding code to handle ad removal is another feature which takes time to develop and keep up to date as APIs and system versions change. Sadly, it may not be lucrative enough for most developers to put that effort in to provide the option.
  • teddyh 8y ago
    > We make more money from the ads than from purchases of ad removal. Yes, you’ll make more money doing the bad thing which people are complaining about. This will always be true. If you could make more money the other way, you would do it, and people would have nothing to complain about. Therefore, the fact that you can make more money is not a valid reason to keep doing it.
  • huhtenberg 8y ago
    > we want to do right by our customers If you are targeting kids and serving up ads by default, you are NOT "doing right by your customers". It might be a wide-spread practice, but it doesn't make it any less unethical. Saying as a parent.
  • ricardobeat 8y ago
    That’s not good enough - you’re just doing the same as everyone else. We just want to buy your apps upfront; I’ve gladly paid for many (ex Toca apps). Having an in-game store, IAP and ads are an absolute no-go for kids under 7. I’ll delete it right off the bat.
  • salvar 8y ago
    When one of the ads in your ad gets clicked, what do you think is the most likely reason? That a child was interested in the product and wanted to get more information before making a decision?
• ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
  It's almost impossible to find good educational apps that aren't full of ads, dark UX patterns, in-app purchases, etc etc. I remember an abundance of educational programs back in the pre-Internet days. Simple Alphabet/Number matching games, click-to-colour-in games, shape identification games, etc. Most came on disks on magazines, or given away free at meetups and events. I expected educational stuff to explode with the internet and smart phones, but instead.. ugh. We really do need a new category in both app stores. Software for kids that you buy, and then that's it. No ads, no in-app purchases, no trickery or bullshit. It should be curated by an educator and have strict rules. They make more than enough off the app store profits to cover an educator who finds, tests, and adds apps each day to this category and slowly fill it with quality educational apps we can trust with our kids. They won't though, because they don't actually care. The more they can train kids to be ok with ads and IAP the more profit they'll make later. It's a form of brainwashing.
  • hkmurakami 8y ago
    There were so many good ones in the early Mac days. I loved playing Outnumbered as a kid and it probably my helped me on a path to great comfort and memory for numbers decades later.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    > It's almost impossible to find good apps that aren't full of ads, dark UX patterns, in-app purchases, etc etc. Fixed that for you...
    • icebraining 8y ago
      F-Droid has plenty of good apps. It just might lack in specific categories, like educational.
  • whywhywhywhy 8y ago
    > We really do need a new category in both app stores. Software for kids that you buy People don't want to pay though, I understand that you want to pay and I want to pay but you have to realize you and me are absolutely the minority.
• bpizzi 8y ago
  Father of two little guys of 7 & 5 here. Personal story below. There's no tablets at home, no games on parent's smartphones. They have access to technology thought. But we are a "NO ADS ALLOWED HERE" kind of home :) Netflix is freely accessible on the only TV we have, during "opening hours", so that they can choose actively their program and not be exposed to TV ads (the TV has only access to Netflix). They can switch on a Raspberry with an emulator where they can play some games from the 80/90'. But they have to enter one command on the little Bluetooth keyboard (and they do!). And finally they can sit at the home's PC, start windows, ask parents to open their session and launch complex games such as Age Of Empire. No internet access, only books for now. When they happen to be exposed to TV ads at grand-parents home, for ex, you can really see what kind of behavior ads are ingraining in little brains: "I want this!", "Why is this so short?", "Why don't they tell the price?". That's always an opportunity for me to educate them to what's actually happening before their eyes: "look guys, this is a company (some people at work) that's working to expose their products (toys) to your eyes, hoping that you will ask your parents to spend money to buy it. They're smart, but we are smarter!". I'm very inclined to think that toddlers should not have access to tablets, moreover to mainstream games on Android/Iphone. My personnal guess is that It's not preparing them to mastering technology, it's preparing them to be addicted to technology.
  • flurdy 8y ago
    Father of primary school aged girls here. Before the kids came the plan was a low tech kids home, reality then smacked us in the face and we compromised. Kids have their own Amazon Fire Kids Unlimited tablets. Which is fairly locked down to their age groups and with no internet and only 30 minutes of app & videos allowed on school days, though unlimited books. The weekends are more generous. (I do love parents.amazon.com) Also added Netflix and BBC Iplayer Kids apps, and they watch BBC's CBeebies channel on the lounge TV occasionally. So normally they never see any ads. But sometimes shit has hit the fan, and they have to be up late watching a commercial kids channel on TV or borrow my phone to play games then they are exposed to ads. I then try to explain to them that ads are not necessarily true. They are trying to sell you something that you might not need or is as good as it pretends to be. Don't think that has sunk in yet. But they seem relatively shielded for now. But they have not got their own phones yet. I dread that day.
• nkkollaw 8y ago
  I've been buying AdGuard for 2 years: completely removes all ads from browsers and every single app. Bought it for a family devices.
• gU9x3u8XmQNG 8y ago
  I have zero tolerance for advertisements. We don’t have “free to air” tv, nor use any services otherwise delivering advertisements. I’m more than happy to pay for content, eg; Netflix. I also actively purchase content via iTunes (movies, music). Apps, however, and that overall ecosystem are near dead to me. I don’t accept anything with “in-app purchases”, and even struggle now to find the “Pay once and own” category - though I so don’t use my devices in ways this impacts me. I’m sure there’s apps that deliver this experience (in app purchases) in what I believe is an ethical manner - and it sucks to rule them all out because of a bad bunch. I don’t have constructive feedback on how to improve this, either. My experience in this whole space has resulted in my rather locked down environment. And I’m extremely happy with it. I’m also happy to provide further information to others, should they wish to deliver what I believe is a safer environment for myself and my family.
  • function_seven 8y ago
    You probably know this, but in case you don't: A lot of apps that have "In-App Purchases" will have one that unlocks the ad-free version of the same app. Instead of the publisher listing two separate versions of their app in the store, they list just the one and handle the crap-free process using IAP instead. BUT... then there are those apps that promise to remove the ads for $1.99 or whatever, but still have an ads-for-loot scheme. That's infuriating.
    • Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      Yup, not to mention other in-app purchases for vanity items, xp boosters, etc. AAA games have those too nowadays (notably Assassin's Creed Odyssey, which has actively been designed to have a poor, plodding experience unless you pay extra for boosters - just like most mobile games).
      • mikewhy 8y ago
        Those transactions have been in AC games for years. What happened with Odyssey is they made an absolute slog of a game.
    • 8y ago
• tobyhinloopen 8y ago
  Thats what you get with free games. Why do you think they are free?
  • doombolt 8y ago
    The problem here is that * There's no paid quality content that you can use instead. * Even if there is, you can't find it. Googe Play will shove pages after pages of "popular" useless toxic crap.
• mirekrusin 8y ago
  Last weekend I gave my almost 4 yo daughter my iPhone with Cut the rope on it as I remembered it was fun... oh my... after few minutes had to turn it off and came back to painting unicorns and playing with dolls - the amount of crap they put there nowadays is ridiculous, you can't do anything, you're constantly bombarded with popups I, myself, couldn't figure out how to close, some of them you have to wait 30 seconds to close, absolute garbage, can't even explain how the game works with different shit poping up all the time. I guess you have to write a game yourself for kids today.
• sunnymano89 8y ago
  xcxzc
• sneak 8y ago
  My bank (Chase) is now trying to sell me cars on the iOS app login screen and on the balance page. Third party ads. In my checking account app. Nothing is safe.
  • newnewpdro 8y ago
    If my bank did this to me I'd throw my computer across the room then immediately remove all my funds after digging out the spare.
  • wingerlang 8y ago
    Third party apps would assume the third party is serving the ad right? I'd assume they are actually first party, meaning Chase is serving it.
    • user5994461 8y ago
      I wouldn't assume that.
  • netsharc 8y ago
    Hah... I wonder if they tailor the ads. "Hey this dude has good credit and his last car loan is 5 years ago... let's show him that Chevy ad.". Or if you go to healthy restaurants/stores: "let's show him the Tesla ad!".
• esotericn 8y ago
  Upon entering the page, I am greeted with a page that looks like this: Top third of page: "Please disable your ad blocker" Next third: "Kids' Apps Are Crammed With Ads" Final third: "Review our Cookie Policy" Yeah, it's a wild west out there, alright.
  • Double_a_92 8y ago
    > Final third: "Review our Cookie Policy" Technically that's a good thing.
    • esotericn 8y ago
      Nah.
• fipple 8y ago
  I downloaded 6TB of wholesome kid's content for my kids when they started to want to watch screens. Animal documentaries, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, etc. The TV in our house can only access this content until they go to bed. When we fly I replicate some of it to the iPad and take it along.
  • wilsonnb3 8y ago
    I’m curious as to whether that 6TB of content was paid for (or public domain).
    • fipple 8y ago
      It was not paid for and it was not public domain. I do try to support the main producers of this content where I can (buying BBC Blu-Rays even though I have them already downloaded), but am not super strict about it. I do pirate.
      • OpenBSD-reich 8y ago
        >I do pirate. Y-har matey, good to see a shipmate aboard! In the age of advertising often times the 'legit' sources where one can buy content still show ads or handcuff your free use of it. BitTorrent (over Tor)/I2PSnark/IPFS/Freenet/etc will probably remain the best way to obtain digital consumables. Big (and small) media still doesn't understand that being anti-user is a Bad Thing(tm).
• thrower123 8y ago
  There's so much hand-wringing about this of late, but it has ever been so, at least for the past sixty years. Ever since the advent of television, children's programming has been laced with breakfast cereal and toy ads. The era I grew up with in during the late 80s, early 90s, was all about merchandising, to the point that it's almost impossible to remember what started out as a cartoon and then became a toy line versus the other way round. Somehow, "This time it is different!" But that seems incredibly myopic given any understanding of history.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Those ads were policed properly, unlike some of the sexual / gambling / alcohol / otherwise unsuitable content I've seen advertised in kids' apps.
  • icebraining 8y ago
    There's been concerns about ads since they first appeared - certainly for the past sixty years. As it expands to occupying more and more of our lives, so the skepticism about it grows.
  • pythonaut_16 8y ago
    The ads then probably weren't good either. But they were certainly less pervasive and hostile.
• samwillis 8y ago
  I think we are very lucky here in the UK, the BBC have a channel called “CBeebies” aimed at 0-6yo whith all the videos available through a dedicated app, plus a huge range of games. Absolutely no ads and most have an educational message. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-apps https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article-cbeebies-app... My 4yo is allowed to use an iPad but it only has the BBC apps on it. No YouTube, Sky, or any other ad supported apps. The BBC has made it possible for us to give her something and not need us to moderate what she is downloading or playing (although we do limit time on it strongly).
  • apexalpha 8y ago
    Same here in The Netherlands where the NPO (dutch BBC) has video's, websites and games for kids of all ages. It's such a bless for parents.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • move-on-by 8y ago
    I installed CBeebies on my iPhone and looked at the pi-hole to see what type of DNS requests it was making when the app was opened (I haven't clicked on a single thing in the app) * graph.facebook.com * analytics.localytics.com * api.branch.io (analytics & ads) * app-measurement.com (analytics, maybe ads too?) * ssl.google-analytics.com * settings.crashlytics.com (perhaps benign) So right off the bat Facebook and Google are both siphoning off data from the use of this app among other 3rd parties. Did you know that?
    • 4ndr3vv 8y ago
      I think that (although honourable) you're off topic here. We're discussing the prevelance of ads baked into apps that are designed specifically for children. The ethical ramifications of third party data are important but the cbeebies apps do a great job of providing engaging, add free content.
• dgzl 8y ago
  This reminds me of a thought experiment I was entertaining with a friend. Imagine a program within your city, that would allow citizens to travel by public transit for free. All they would need to do is wear a pancho of sorts, completely covered with advertising. Although practical, this experience would be humiliating, annoying, and would probably be extremely beneficial for those who truly need it, and might be an eyesore for the rest of us. Should we support our friends in need, and encourage something like this? Or is selling ourself (and others) to marketing and advertising going to hurt us in the long run? If so, then what is a fair price for keeping ads away?
  • oever 8y ago
    People wearing sponsored clothing like sporters is held back by the cost of enforcement. This cost will drop soon when enforcement is automated by algorithms and self-surveillance via mobile phone.
  • leetcrew 8y ago
    > Although practical, this experience would be humiliating, annoying, and would probably be extremely beneficial for those who truly need it, and might be an eyesore for the rest of us. i don't think it's inherently humiliating to wear an advertisement. plenty of people pay to do this today (eg baseball hats and branded clothing). now if the advertising is tasteful/stylish enough that people actually want to wear it, probably no one will pay you to do it. perhaps a middle ground exists where people can get paid to wear moderately tasteful ads. for example, the livery of a formula one car is a bit garish, but they do seem to make some effort to make the colors work together.
    • dgzl 8y ago
      I think that forcing other subjects on the bus to view your advertisement would be insulting and an eyesore for them, thus being humiliating for you. I don't think a single logo would suffice though, I'm thinking of a very large and obnoxious advertisement, with many brands and logos. Essentially, endless ads that are stitched together. I couldn't imagine this being comparable to a Nike t-shirt.
• skrebbel 8y ago
  Unlike the better parents in this thread, I sometimes let my toddler play an Android game. I can tell you with certainty that every ad in a toddler game is click fraud. He never wants to click the ad. He wants to play the game, but hits the wrong button. In my book, the fact that Google allows clickable ads in toddler games makes them complicit in ad fraud. And hey, why wouldn't they? It's not like it's "real fraud" right? Right? (I'm not entirely kidding, I don't understand why other forms of fraud are punishable with prison time but ad fraud is totally a-ok)
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Heh, reminds me of an alarm clock app I had in the very early days of Android where the "snooze" button and the ad would periodically swap places, meaning that in my half asleep state I'd be hitting the ad half the time. I'm not surprised that this kind of behaviour is still allowed, I'm sure it's highly lucrative. Also very hard to police.
    • LeifCarrotson 8y ago
      It's temporarily lucrative for the app developer and probably for the app platform as well. They're selling the ad space per impression, so more impressions equals more money...until the people buying it figure out their ads are ineffective. It makes me wonder how someone in the advertising department for these companies hasn't seen their 3-year-old trapped in a cycle clicking on Momma's ad and burning through budget causing some reevaluation of priorities. Where is all this dumb advertising money coming from?
  • logicchains 8y ago
    >(I'm not entirely kidding, I don't understand why other forms of fraud are punishable with prison time but ad fraud is totally a-ok). It's very simple: no actual fraud in a legal sense has been committed. The person clicking the ad certainly hasn't signed any contract with the ad publisher, so how could they possibly be committing fraud by clicking the ad? The creator of the application showing the ads does not sign a contract guaranteeing to the advertiser that every click is legitimate (how could they possibly enforce, or even measure that), so it's not fraud on their part either.
• benj111 8y ago
  Anyone uk based, iplayer is a good option. Although speaking as a father of a 2 yr old you're in trouble if their favourite program gets removed. So black market backup required. Slightly off topic, but how does everyone deal with these issues for older kids. I would like when they get to the age of asking for a playstation X to just not plug it in to the internet, so I don't have to worry about it. But I'm not sure offline capable consoles are going to exist by then.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    The solution my wife and I came up with was to just not have kids. It's depressing to admit, but we're genuinely that disillusioned with the state of the world (we're in our mid-30s FWIW).
    • whywhywhywhy 8y ago
      Seems drastic maybe try going off the grid and into the countryside for a bit. Honestly the world isn't anywhere near as bad as a lot of the media and the social media hivemind will lead you to believe.
  • Double_a_92 8y ago
    Don't shelter your kids too much. Just buy them the Playstation when they are old enough, and let them learn how to deal with the shit in the world.
    • benj111 8y ago
      Are you being flippant? Cant tell. I'm quite prepared to believe im yet another parent worrying about the latest X I don't understand. It just seems to me that at 11 /12 years old they will probably want computer games, and probably are not old enough to deal with 'the shit of the world'.
      • Double_a_92 8y ago
        I didn't mean to be flippant. But 12 year olds are not as "incompetent" as you might think, or at least not much more than say a 21 year old. Just explain them the basic dangers that they need to look out for, and then they will learn on their own.
• josefresco 8y ago
  Bought the kids Amazon Kindle Fire's a while back. Would occasionally use one of them and every time I would launch Silk (the browser) an adult ad/website would load complete with graphic nudity. A new ad would load each day when launching Silk. Thankfully she never saw them (she doesn't' use or even know what "Silk" is) but I was forced to randomly uninstall games until I found the culprit. I would shame them here but I forgot which game it was. We also have a Chromebook, with a game rated "10 and up" - this game also loads adult ads - no nudity but plenty suggestive. I complained via Twitter - crickets. Kids are not so used to ads, they instinctively hunt for the "X" button whenever anything (ad or not) overlays on top of their content.
  • VLM 8y ago
    The problem is the parents not reporting the infraction. At least WRT google play app store, they can be brutal toward apps with ads with wrong content criteria, see the link discussing your situation https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ads/inappropriate/ https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ads/inappropr... with a side dish of https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ads/interfering/ https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ads/interferi... Presumably whatever the amazon devices use for an app store (google play, I donno) has similar draconian policies to enforce IF the problem is ever reported. Unfortunately I've had to set up ads from the developer side and the Google UI is not bad, but nothing's perfect, so in a world of a million apps its entirely possible the dev accidentally screwed up age criteria rather than was willfully antagonistic; but if parents don't report the problem to the dev or appstore there is little hope of improvement either way. If you can get the attention of Google's automated AI eye of sauron in policy enforcement, I assure you they are remorseless, draconian, and merciless. The difficult part is getting their attention. My kids have learned from youtube how to side load cracked and modified apps such as minecraft on their devices downloaded from mysterious and unsavory websites, which promptly messes everything on the system up, such that its possible the app dev and Google have nothing to do with your situation.
    • josefresco 8y ago
      > The problem is the parents not reporting the infraction. Does complaining via Twitter count? Because I did, and typically I get a response because "public shaming" seems to be the best way to get support these days. I also complained about the Chromebook/Android game ad and got ... crickets. Unfortunately, taking many minutes or a few hours from my day to report the issue to Amazon or Google doesn't seem like a valuable use of my time - I guess that's the problem :( It should be two clicks/presses to report an ad violation, especially on a device sold specifically to kids (Kindle Fire).
• EastSmith 8y ago
  Father of 10 years old. Technology is everywhere. Pixels, Gaming laptops, Youtube. I think my son have not seen an ad in a long time. TV is replaced with Youtube (mainly kind of stupid local streamers), all Chromes (phone, laptop, tv) are equipped with ad blockers. The time spend on these devices is not limited at all. The trick is my son spends a lot of time on all kind of outside activities. Like playing with friends, language courses, math courses. When at home, I purposely try to find activities outside tech - like just chatting, lego before, currently doing random house projects. Also he is wikipedia expert - name a unknown topic and he is on wikipedia reading about it. At the end he has like 2,3 hours free a day. He can do whatever he want - mainly playing games with his friends, when he is not installing all kinds of software he finds on internet. So to sum it up - nothing is forbidden, time on devices looks healthy to me. I see some of his friends spending quite a lot time online though. As for the ads, this streamer was advertising a stupid PC mouse. We bought it knowing it will be a disaster. His monthly budget was spend on it, it sucked and now he knows firsthand about the ads and as a bonus - he doubts the streamer and online content in general.
  • EastSmith 8y ago
    As for the apps - there is only one thing I can recommend in the app store: Intellijoy Educational Games for Kids.
    • empath75 8y ago
      My kid learned all of his letters before the age of 2 with the Endless Reader app.
  • jpkeisala 8y ago
    If your kid watches gamers playing Minecraft etc. on Youtube he probably is getting product placement ad's.
    • ashelmire 8y ago
      That's extremely hard to avoid... even on HN!
• all2 8y ago
  I didn't see this anywhere: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_of_childrens_youtube_and_what_s_wrong_with_the_internet_today/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_... TL;DR - algorithms are not unbiased, in fact the bias of the writers is baked into them. See this HN post for similar observations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18184697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18184697
• moltar 8y ago
  YouTube videos too. I was at my friend’s place and they were showing some cartoon to their kid. After the cartoon was over came a 10 minute ad that does not look like an ad. It’s just a woman and 2 kids playing with toys. Ofc the toys being the focus. It’s so dirty!
• logicallee 8y ago
  "Dad when are you going to remortgage the house?" "What? You're five years old, how do you know about mortgages" "Well.. I was just thinking... Interest rates have never been lower"
• jap 8y ago
  I've spent a lot of time finding apps I trust enough to leave my kids mostly unsupervised with. For me it's mostly boiled down to finding trustworthy app publishers, I listed some here a while ago: https://medium.com/@jacksonpauls/apps-for-preschool-kids-304473a4f6db https://medium.com/@jacksonpauls/apps-for-preschool-kids-304...
• mlcrypto 8y ago
  I remember being 11 years old with dial up internet and getting to play RuneScape for 30 minutes every now and then. I always wanted to play more
• satysin 8y ago
  Ads are the reason I don't both with phone and tablet games anymore. If I want to game on the go I take the Switch with me. Same for my son (5yo). I also don't let him watch YouTube on my phone or tablet, only the computer where the ads are perfectly blocked thanks to uBlock Origin. I run Pi-hole but it is not perfect on mobile devices. I was very tempted at getting YouTube Premium but at £11.99 a month I feel it is too much. I would have gone for it if it were £6 or 7 but something about £12 makes me question how much value it is really giving me. Pricing psychology is strange like that. Not to mention YT Premium only removes the YouTube ads not all the sponsored content that is a part of the video. That is becoming a bigger issue imho but not part of this discussion. It sucks though in some ways as there are some great mobile games but they are ruined with adverts often with no way to remove them. Some games have an ad-free version for a few quid but most don't. Clearly they can make much more spamming ads every other death than they can with a one off payment of a £3-5.
• floatboth 8y ago
  Heh, I grew up with PC games (mostly pirated, though I still have my legit DVD copy of NFS Most Wanted) — and I just realized that I was mildly exposed to in-game ads back then — in the form of product placement! (or rather brand placement?) e.g. Cingular and Burger King (NFS Underground 2), Motorola (Tony Hawk's Underground 2)… but Cingular was a US thing, and Burger King didn't exist in my country back then either, so these ads were hilariously irrelevant to me.
  • pszndr 8y ago
    > and I just realized that I was mildly exposed to in-game ads back then — in the form of product placement! (or rather brand placement?) Well of course, ever since OutRun there is blatant product placement in most racing games: car brands There is a reason your DVD copy of Most Wanted has a BMW M3 on the cover
• wst_ 8y ago
  My kid is around 3yo now and likes My Little Pony, so I decided to see what's on the Android market. I've found out some app, genuine, from Hasbro. I got it for some time now and in the course of last few months number of ads showed during game play jumped up dramatically. From starting the game, for first two minutes I have counted 6-8 ads, each one including not only at least 30 sec video but also some stub of application after that lasting also around 30 seconds, unless manually disabled. Thing is that close buttons are cramped somewhere in the corner, small and they don't appear right from the start. It doesn't seem to be this concrete application problem. Rather some decision has been made by Google advertisement platform, it seems. It's so annoying that I am not even going to consider purchasing the product, as I would in other circumstances. This, paradoxically, have had a great influence on our lives - no more playing games.
• move-on-by 8y ago
  This is one of many reasons I do not feel the least bit bad about having a Pi-Hole [1] on my network to block ads and trackers [2]. The companies behind this are predatory. The advertisement and analytic platforms they use are complicit. I have an obligation to shield my family from their manipulative and malicious intentions. The option to just avoid these types of apps/websites is a farce. The platforms have infiltrated our lives at every level - analytics are always being collected. My own ISP has the right to spy on me and my family and sell our activities to be used against us in the form of advertisements. [1] https://pi-hole.net https://pi-hole.net [2] https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts
• rchaud 8y ago
  I remember playing boatloads of old-school Flash games in the mid-2000s. Never saw a single ad in-game. When Jobs wrote his "On Flash" open letter, I thought at the time he was pushing for a mobile-friendly equivalent of what Flash offered. It was years later I realized he was really only pushing to keep the walled garden "app store" the dominant distribution model for interactive mobile content, with Apple taking a cut of every dollar spent. I really hope HTML5 games sitting on simple websites go back to being a thing.
  • tqi 8y ago
    My recollection was those sites were stuffed to the gills with banner ads... how else would those free to play flash game sites make money?
    • rchaud 8y ago
      You're right, they must have been showing ads of some sort. I simply don't remember any; perhaps they weren't that egregious or so numerous that I would recall it ~13 years later. I know I didn't have any adblockers installed on my PC until at least 2010, so I must have seen them if there were any.
• post_break 8y ago
  And now Apple removed the ability to see in app purchases, so you can't even see if you can remove the ads with a paid upgrade.
• scotty79 8y ago
  I wonder why people pay to show those adds there. This must be a lot of very low quality ad clickthroughs.
• ameister14 8y ago
  I run ads - I really, really don't want to advertise to kids so I have an exclusion list of hundreds of kids-oriented apps and youtube channels where Google insists on placing my ads; I believe this is because parents own the phones and log into things and Google thinks it's within the 25-64 demo I chose. It's exceptionally annoying, because kids click on ads CONSTANTLY - that makes Google more likely to show the ads there and has me paying for absolutely useless clicks over and over.
  • WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/ This is my favorite after adblock.
• mtgx 8y ago
  What's almost just as bad is that networks such as Google also abuse advertisers by counting random clicks from kids. All ads on mobile should require a 2-click action, and it shouldn't be easy to click twice by mistake either. Like the second button should appear in another location of the screen or something.
• brownkonas 8y ago
  As a parent , I simply request search functionality in the App Store and Play Store to search for apps with no ads , and no in-app purchases. Happy to pay an up front fee for well designed , strategy based games and apps for limited use by my kids.
• IvanK_net 8y ago
  At least kids can still use thier Apps, unlike me at NYTimes.com
• MrLeftHand 8y ago
  I bought for my kids Amazon Fire tablets and had to realise there are no games which were suitable for them. Each one of them had some sort of ads, even the completely free ones on their Underground market. And Amazon is also a big offender. They have ad popups even on their kids interface. The only way to counter this is to go offline after you downloaded the game, but still there are some which wouldn't even start without an internet connection. In Google's and Amazon's place I would uphold the app creators to certain standards when it comes to kids games and apps. Like not putting ads in their apps, or if even if I allow it, then forcing them to make it easily closable and not making them with 10x10 pixel big X marks. In the end all the games out there on the app store are either complete rubbish, or just money grabbing schemes. There are rare exceptions, but good luck finding them.
• fpn 8y ago
  I am going to take a different position, my kids are now trained to not even see the ads. The search for the hidden x to close the ad is fully automatic.
• yohann305 8y ago
  Developers have to make a living, that's what happens with the race to the bottom pricing in app stores
• NelsonMinar 8y ago
  The US should ban all advertisement to children.
• derReineke 8y ago
  I feel like whoever wrote this doesn't have kids or just now started paying attention to what they are doing on their devices. Also, this seems like it would be really obvious; people want money. Kids love to just click everything so there is a ton of revenue there.
• jm20 8y ago
  We've had a pretty popular kids coding app in the App Store for about 6 years now (Kodable). We've never remotely considered having ads and never will, and from the article it sounds like this heavily skews towards the ad-heavy Google Play store. From my experience most of the big name kids app developers do not put ads in their apps (almost never on iOS), although I can understand why developers do. Whether you like it or not, they work. There are two things that are always going to be true about this - kids are going to download lots of free apps (because it is easier than asking parents to pay), and they are going to accidentally tap on ads. The developer doesn't care if the user will actually purchase the product being advertised, all they care about is the click. That's just the way PPC advertising incentivizes developers. The only way around this is strictly limiting advertising for games targeting children. That has to come from the App Store moderators (Google, Apple, etc).
• ngngngng 8y ago
  I'm surprised no one has released an ad blocking router yet. Just plug it in and it has default dns rules in place to block all domains serving ads. Like a pihole but built into the router. It could broadcast a separate network that doesn't block ads in case the ad blocking broke something you needed to use. If I had any experience in manufacturing i'd be all over this.
• humanetech 8y ago
  For all those of you who are worried, and want to help work on solutions to the harms that come with our modern technology, I invite you to join the Humane Tech Community at our community forum [0]. We are still a relatively small community, having just repositioned ourselves as a separate subsidiary of The Center for Humane Technology [1]. We will start a number of crowdsourced community-driven projects - all in the public domain - to help Re-align Technology To Humanity's Best Interests Again. Just created our first Awareness Campaigns project and will soon launch our community website. Our forum has lotsa information about tech harms and their solutions. But we are just at the start, and need as much help as we can get. [0] https://community.humanetech.com https://community.humanetech.com [1] https://humanetech.com https://humanetech.com
• pbarnes_1 8y ago
  iOS tablet + pi-hole - anything youtube = good kids tablet.
• dabei 8y ago
  My strategy as a parent: cultivate healthy hobbies with your kid. I taught chess to my daughter when she was 5. We play it together all the time, not only standard chess but also all kinds of variants (she invented a few fun variants herself). She goes to chess club every week and tournaments every couple of months. The iPad is loaded with dozens of chess apps, nothing else. Chess, together with other activities like art and sports take up most of her leisure time. There is no room left for the ads infested games and videos. We never have to tell her not to play or watch those. And she's having a great time anyway.
• qsymmachus 8y ago
  As the comments on this post make clear, there are a lot of HN readers who go to great lengths to reduce or even eliminate screen time for their kids. Just this week, the NY Times wrote a piece about how parents who work in tech are most wary of the impact screen time has on their children[1]. Even more broadly, the same gap was found between high-income families and low-income families. Poorer children spend ~2.5 more hours in front of a screen per day than rich children[2]. I am seriously concerned about this emerging "digital divide", which is ironically an inversion of what everyone expected. What does it say about the kind of things we are building, when the people who work closest with tech are most afraid of it, and take the greatest lengths to keep it away from their kids? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-silicon-valley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-sil... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-screens-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/digital-divide-scre...
  • xvector 8y ago
    On a macro scale, I am absolutely horrified at what this will spell for our democracy. Conditioning the majority of kids via ads to achieve certain political goals and groom certain mindsets is absolutely on the table here.
• andrew-dc 8y ago
  Father of two boys, and kinda lapsed gamer. Wanted to introduce boys to some fun games we can play together. I cannot express how maddening the entire casino/micro-transaction transformation of all games has ruined everything for kids. I would happily buy a game out-right if it disabled all up-sells, and transactional BS. Even frikkin Minecraft launches with a bazillion pay upgrades now, and that's after you already bought it. I play a few carefully selected Steam titles with the boys in a limited fashion, because they are actually games, and not clever schemes to monetize everything. Even so, my oldest (who's 6) hasn't even ever seen Fortnight - and yet he still asks me about it. (I guess he hears about it from friends.) That's how good their marketing and monetization strategy works... It's sickening.
  • tomjen3 8y ago
    As someone who used to develop games I would love to work on non-ad games, but the way the appstore works, you have to get on the top ten to make money (first page of google effect), which you can only do if you charge .99 (in the paid category) or free and then fill it with ads and shit. It takes a lot of advertisments elsewhere to get on the top ten apps in the appstore, which means if you don't fill your app with crap you can't afford to get the app up high enough that you break even. The best thing apple could do would be to randomize the list of which apps are shown when the user just searches, perhaps even weighted by reviews.
    • andrew-dc 8y ago
      Oh yeah, I get that the stores and industry are a major problem here. Devs who don't play the store ranking game, end up losing. I resent that very much. I'm not certain what would be a decent solution for this problem, cause even if games were rated by users on "quality" - then the shift would be to game that quality system, by rewarding players to rank things higher quality, etc. Just a bummer.
• Tsubasachan 8y ago
  You don't need root to block ads on Android. To hell with the marketing industry: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.jak_linux.dns66/ If you're on iOS its FUBAR though.