Web-monitoring software gathers data on kid chats

Web-monitoring software gathers data on kid chats

www.google.com

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids' online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children's chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

"This scares me more than anything I have seen using m

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The two problems I have here are these:

1. The software is being sold under false pretences. The users of the software are under the impression that it is to protect their family while not being told of the other purpose -- to mine their on-line activities for resale and profit.

2. There is no guarantee that this is the limit of what the software can do or be possibly enhanced to do. At this point do we believe the company claims that they are looking out for the privacy of the users? After all, so much more money can be made if they could make up actual user profiles for targeted marketing or government surveillance.

This is really the danger of data mining and data collection -- it's not the government who is collecting all this massive information, but private companies.

Thoughts?

www.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I am really glad you found this,very useful information,thank-you!

Parents spy on the computers of their kiddies. Companies watch those kiddies with the same software.

Not all of course, but the possibility is very logical.

The company consists of users after all,
And users... well anyone ''well versed'' in the underground internets know what they do.

They give you flamethrowers, but forget to tell you that the equipment itself is covered in oil.

If you want true security there's only a few possibilities for the ''lesser skilled'':

1.: Google for things concerning the product and see if anyone found out anything ''bad'' about it.

2.: Use some publicly available scanners (Anubis & Jotti) and ask some whizzkid to translate all the mumbo jumbo for you.

fyi: Anubis is a service hosted only that lets you upload files, after which it executes the file, and tells you what it does.

[edit on 7-9-2009 by borrowedname]

This is the part that worries me and I am suspicious about the most personally

According to the agreement, the software passes along data to "trusted partners." Confidentiality agreements prohibit those clients from sharing the information with others.

google.com

They had already said that the information was private but instead they shared it with "trusted companies" who can't share with others supposedly. But it wouldn't take a great leap of the imagination to see those companies sharing the information with other "trusted companies" etc. From a supposedly safe starting point you now have a problem with your children's data being shared/traded between a sizeable number of companies and you have no way of knowing the intentions of all of them.
Well thats what I've got to say anyone else got a different thought on what I've put?

-Cauch1