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So far the only kids apps I've used with my little one is 'Sesame Street' and 'PBS Kids Video'. He loves Elmo, and its very handy in the pediatrician's waiting

So far the only kids apps I've used with my little one is 'Sesame Street' and 'PBS Kids Video'. He loves Elmo, and its very handy in the pediatrician's waiting room to have a distraction. I also run a PiHole, and to my displeasure, I've found both these apps use Google Analytics. PBS Kids Video goes a few steps further and uses Google AdWords as well as ScorecardResearch analytics. These publicly funded apps are siphoning data about me and my little one off to 3rd parties. The 3rd paries might not be able to use that data for targeted advertising within the app, but make no mistake that the data is still used to 'enrich' my shadow profiles. I am very excited about these changes from Apple and I hope that they are able to enforce them. I've written both of the apps support emails in the past about the analytics and never received a response. I've also heard of a popular BBC kids app called CBeebies. Last time I ran it on my iPhone, it reached out to Facebook, Localytics, Branch.io, Google Analytics, app-measurement.com, and onesignal.com

nicholashead 7y ago
Also, PBS Kids Video straight up wouldn't play videos at all unless I whitelisted certain analytics domains.
- flukus 7y ago
  ABC (the Australian equivalent of BBC) too. The web player sends data to gigya, newrelic and googlegadgetmanager. The news site adds (just the front page) adds jwpcdn, chartbeat and loggly. The live stream are from scribly or someone and often the content of them is embedded twitter, so our national government funded news service isn't even hosting much of their own content and it's unavailable to many that have sites like twitter blocked at world. The don't even have the profit motive excuse that commercial sites have.
penagwin 7y ago
I dislike tracking as much as anyone, but can you really fault them for using Google analytics? It's not like PBS choose to use them "to profit off the viewers".
- move-on-by 7y ago
  This is the problem, its just convenient and free. People are not thinking about the costs to the end consumer - which in this case is our children. I don't really fault PBS, but I do fault the advertising companies for our general lack of privacy and control over our own data. I also fault the politicians for turning a blind eye to it. I hope Apple's new strategy to go after privacy pays off in a big way and more companies fall in line with it. Or at very least more people begin to think about the trade-offs before blindly injecting google analytics into everything. Self-hosted analytics that does not feed into an advertising giant is not unobtainable goal.
  - notatoad 7y ago
    I think most people do realize the cost, and are simply unconcerned with giving google such critical information as "kids watch sesame street".
    - blub 7y ago
      You think wrong, because it's not just one app. In fact, so many apps embed these analytics frameworks, that it's possible to make an almost complete picture of what a device was used for every day, including location information, etc on the back-end.
    - Aaargh20318 7y ago
      But it's not 'kids watch sesame street' that you're sending to Google. What you're sending is: * This phone is used by a kid * $user has children (through association with other devices used at the same location and IP) * $kid lives at $address (even when it doesn't know the location of $kid's phone, it knows the location of other devices using the same IP) * $kid goes to $school (using location data from your or your SO's phone when dropping of your kid). * etc. etc. A lot of information can be inferred by knowing which other users are associated with a child.
      - move-on-by 7y ago
frereubu 7y ago
Have you considered a write-up of the issues with the CBeebies app? The BBC is the kind of organisation that might quite easily be shamed into removing those.
- move-on-by 7y ago
  Well, theoretically, they will have to remove these to remain in the AppStore with the new guidelines. I hope Apple is able to enforce it.
  - frereubu 7y ago
    True, although I presume there's an Android version too...
- mehh 7y ago
  I think we are overloading what we mean by analytics and the purpose of it. Its not all about collecting profiles of users for advertising. It also about understanding the usage of your application. The BBC should absolutely by tracking the usage of their apps to ensure what the are producing has value, the just shouldn't allow that data to be used for third parties and their ad business. Note that BBC UK apps, and worldwide operate under different schemes.
  - frereubu 7y ago
    It's not the fact that they're trying to understand how people use the app, it's that they're using services like Facebook and thereby syphoning more personal data towards corporate entities that have a genuinely terrible track record when it comes to using and abusing people's data.
paulcole 7y ago
> These publicly funded apps are siphoning data about me and my little one off to 3rd parties. If you need some pearls to clutch, there’s an app for that. Unfortunately it contains Google Analytics and ScorecardResearch analytics. I mean how much can there be to know about a kid? Loves Elmo? Oh better show it ads for Elmo lmao.
- blub 7y ago
  You can know who their contacts are and where they are for instance. Apps do request these permissions, sometimes for legitimate reasons and analytics frameworks then take advantage of that data: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
  - paulcole 7y ago
    What contacts does a toddler have?
    - blub 7y ago
      Kids under 2 should not even use devices, we're talking about older kids. Furthermore, those older kids are almost certainly using their parents' device.
judge2020 7y ago
If I'm not mistaken, Google Analytics isn't used for tracking/targeting across apps and a browser or app beaming statistics won't have that page visit associated with their google account. You don't even need to tick "my app uses the advertisement tracking ID" during app store distribution if you just embed Google analytics.

nicholashead 7y ago

Also, PBS Kids Video straight up wouldn't play videos at all unless I whitelisted certain analytics domains.

flukus 7y ago
ABC (the Australian equivalent of BBC) too. The web player sends data to gigya, newrelic and googlegadgetmanager. The news site adds (just the front page) adds jwpcdn, chartbeat and loggly. The live stream are from scribly or someone and often the content of them is embedded twitter, so our national government funded news service isn't even hosting much of their own content and it's unavailable to many that have sites like twitter blocked at world. The don't even have the profit motive excuse that commercial sites have.

penagwin 7y ago

I dislike tracking as much as anyone, but can you really fault them for using Google analytics? It's not like PBS choose to use them "to profit off the viewers".

move-on-by 7y ago
This is the problem, its just convenient and free. People are not thinking about the costs to the end consumer - which in this case is our children. I don't really fault PBS, but I do fault the advertising companies for our general lack of privacy and control over our own data. I also fault the politicians for turning a blind eye to it. I hope Apple's new strategy to go after privacy pays off in a big way and more companies fall in line with it. Or at very least more people begin to think about the trade-offs before blindly injecting google analytics into everything. Self-hosted analytics that does not feed into an advertising giant is not unobtainable goal.
- notatoad 7y ago
  I think most people do realize the cost, and are simply unconcerned with giving google such critical information as "kids watch sesame street".
  - blub 7y ago
    You think wrong, because it's not just one app. In fact, so many apps embed these analytics frameworks, that it's possible to make an almost complete picture of what a device was used for every day, including location information, etc on the back-end.
  - Aaargh20318 7y ago
    But it's not 'kids watch sesame street' that you're sending to Google. What you're sending is: * This phone is used by a kid * $user has children (through association with other devices used at the same location and IP) * $kid lives at $address (even when it doesn't know the location of $kid's phone, it knows the location of other devices using the same IP) * $kid goes to $school (using location data from your or your SO's phone when dropping of your kid). * etc. etc. A lot of information can be inferred by knowing which other users are associated with a child.
    - move-on-by 7y ago

frereubu 7y ago

Have you considered a write-up of the issues with the CBeebies app? The BBC is the kind of organisation that might quite easily be shamed into removing those.

move-on-by 7y ago
Well, theoretically, they will have to remove these to remain in the AppStore with the new guidelines. I hope Apple is able to enforce it.
- frereubu 7y ago
  True, although I presume there's an Android version too...
mehh 7y ago
I think we are overloading what we mean by analytics and the purpose of it. Its not all about collecting profiles of users for advertising. It also about understanding the usage of your application. The BBC should absolutely by tracking the usage of their apps to ensure what the are producing has value, the just shouldn't allow that data to be used for third parties and their ad business. Note that BBC UK apps, and worldwide operate under different schemes.
- frereubu 7y ago
  It's not the fact that they're trying to understand how people use the app, it's that they're using services like Facebook and thereby syphoning more personal data towards corporate entities that have a genuinely terrible track record when it comes to using and abusing people's data.

paulcole 7y ago

> These publicly funded apps are siphoning data about me and my little one off to 3rd parties. If you need some pearls to clutch, there’s an app for that. Unfortunately it contains Google Analytics and ScorecardResearch analytics. I mean how much can there be to know about a kid? Loves Elmo? Oh better show it ads for Elmo lmao.

blub 7y ago
You can know who their contacts are and where they are for instance. Apps do request these permissions, sometimes for legitimate reasons and analytics frameworks then take advantage of that data: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/loca...
- paulcole 7y ago
  What contacts does a toddler have?
  - blub 7y ago
    Kids under 2 should not even use devices, we're talking about older kids. Furthermore, those older kids are almost certainly using their parents' device.

judge2020 7y ago

If I'm not mistaken, Google Analytics isn't used for tracking/targeting across apps and a browser or app beaming statistics won't have that page visit associated with their google account. You don't even need to tick "my app uses the advertisement tracking ID" during app store distribution if you just embed Google analytics.