[HN Gopher] How to Stop Advertisers from Tracking Your Teen Acro...
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       How to Stop Advertisers from Tracking Your Teen Across the Internet
        
       Author : mooreds
       Score  : 56 points
       Date   : 2024-10-06 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | If only Congress realized that some of these advertisers and data
       | brokers answer to the CCP ... maybe we could have a tracking-free
       | internet.
        
         | hulitu wrote:
         | > If only Congress realized that some of these advertisers and
         | data brokers answer to the CCP ... maybe we could have a
         | tracking-free internet.
         | 
         | Yes, but Google, Microsoft and Meta answer to Uncle Sam. Why
         | intetfere with their business ? /s
        
           | j-bos wrote:
           | You kid but perhaps https://www.vulnu.com/p/government-
           | wiretaps-in-u-s-internet-...
        
         | philwelch wrote:
         | Much of Congress answers to the CCP too.
        
           | curiousgal wrote:
           | However to most of the world, Congress is what you perceive
           | the CCP to be.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _Much of Congress answers to the CCP too_
           | 
           | What nonsense. No it doesn't. By the same standard of
           | evidence, the CCP answers to American interests.
        
       | hnpolicestate wrote:
       | Cats gotta be out of the bag long by now.
       | 
       | Am I to believe Google classroom isn't storing my students
       | information, from as young as 3rd grade, to sell to 3rd parties
       | once they turn 18? Or am I naive to think they aren't already
       | selling it while they are literally children?
        
         | nvarsj wrote:
         | Most kids just stay logged as as their google classroom email,
         | so that includes search/youtube/etc. Of course Google is
         | tracking all that usage and targeting them for ads.
        
           | hnpolicestate wrote:
           | By the time they turn 18, Google will have such a perfect
           | model of who they are. Will sell to the CIA, FBI etc.
           | Complete profiles of how citizens think. Really evil stuff.
        
             | nox101 wrote:
             | this is a lie and you feel ashamed and stop spreading it.
             | Google doesn't sell profles period and doesn't sell data to
             | the fbi/cia
             | 
             | The only evil here is you spreading false info
        
           | Barrin92 wrote:
           | For what it's worth since the DMA went into effect in Europe,
           | you can now turn off sharing between almost all Google
           | services.
           | 
           | https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/14202892
        
         | SpicyLemonZest wrote:
         | Tracking isn't the kind of thing where once you cross some
         | threshold there's no point in caring. Even if your kid's
         | schoolwork habits are all bundled and sold to advertisers,
         | protecting their privacy in other areas remains just as
         | valuable.
        
           | hnpolicestate wrote:
           | Sarcasm? "Even if your kids schoolwork habits are all bundled
           | and sold to advertisers". I think by that point we have done
           | such a shameful job of protecting the privacy of children
           | that we should put our heads down and throw in the towel. Not
           | to mention all that data being fed into Gemini, profited off
           | of.
           | 
           | No point in protecting whatever private crumbs remain.
           | Requires a full social reset. Imo.
        
             | SpicyLemonZest wrote:
             | What is a "full social reset"? Ideally I'd prefer to make
             | incremental progress on privacy, but if you pinned me down
             | and made me choose between accepting the status quo and
             | abolishing all networked education apps, I'd pick the
             | status quo. They have real benefits and I wish they'd been
             | around when I was a kid.
        
         | ssss11 wrote:
         | That's my biggest concern. Schools have no idea.
        
           | scrapcode wrote:
           | Certainly not siding with Big G here, but the onus is on the
           | school. They should be able to be held accountable.
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | I've worked in the education sector--at least in the US there
           | are well known data protection laws that schools very much do
           | know about and attempt to comply with. It's not quite HIPAA
           | levels of serious, but they do take it seriously, and as
           | another commenter notes Google actually does comply.
        
             | damontal wrote:
             | I remember a teacher telling us that parents should not
             | check their kids Google classroom accounts because it would
             | be a violation of the other students' privacy. I understand
             | what they were saying but there's no way I'm not checking
             | my kid's Google classroom account. Ridiculous.
        
         | advisedwang wrote:
         | If your student has a google account created by the school
         | using Google for Education, then their data is not being used
         | for ads. And if their admins delete your student account after
         | they graduate (as they should) then their data is truly gone
         | (after a relatively short retention period).
         | 
         | Now if you have a student using a non Google for Education
         | account, then Google _will_ store and use their data for ad
         | targeting after they turn 18. Also if they lie about their age
         | when they create their account (which is very likely,
         | especially because Google doesn 't allow you to create an
         | account with age less than 13) then this will kick in sooner.
         | In addition even though ad personalization is off for under 18
         | and advertisers are not supposed to target them by other means,
         | they can and do by targetting search terms, youtube categories
         | etc that under 18s are frequently interested in.
         | 
         | (FWIW Google never really "sells" your data. That would loose
         | their monopoly on their most valued asset. It's more like they
         | rent it out, but allowing advertisers to target you. The
         | advertisers never actually get to see "person X has attribute
         | ABC", more like the advertiser says "target people with ABC"
         | and they trust google to show it people like that.)
        
           | hnpolicestate wrote:
           | "If your student has a google account created by the school
           | using Google for Education, then their data is not being used
           | for ads" - then how do they make money? Is Google classroom
           | free for schools?
        
             | lolinder wrote:
             | Yes, but there are enterprise-y tiers that are paid.
        
             | Loughla wrote:
             | Yes it's free. And yes it's not making money. They do have
             | phenomenal education resources for teachers that are paid,
             | though.
             | 
             | It's about getting them baked into the google ecosystem.
             | Microsoft did this in the 90's, but with businesses instead
             | of schools (and not for free to be honest).
             | 
             | Get them used to Google so they use nothing but Google when
             | they're adults. Then monetization happens.
        
           | ars wrote:
           | > because Google doesn't allow you to create an account with
           | age less than 13
           | 
           | Actually you can - you create the account under FamilyLink.
           | 
           | See here: https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103338
        
       | canada_dry wrote:
       | I would hazard to guess that Google classroom (starting at
       | Kindergarten and continuing through post secondary) software is
       | mostly installed via next-next-finish (i.e. whatever the defaults
       | set by Google are). I'd also assume that these defaults are set
       | to very minimal privacy protection for students.
       | 
       | Having this digital record entrusted to any company that is not
       | under strong privacy controls should be frightening to parents.
       | 
       | School administrators figure the low-cost low-barrier-to-entry is
       | well worth the long term privacy risk to children.
       | 
       | * Fortunately my children were out of school when this became
       | common place - so kindly correct me if I'm mistaken.
        
         | Loughla wrote:
         | Google for education has very thorough and strict privacy
         | controls. They have to, most states have pretty strict laws
         | around that anymore.
        
       | ykonstant wrote:
       | This is one of the situations where I would use a more baity
       | title: "Protect your teen from non-consensual ad tracking". The
       | subject is boring and abstract enough that you need all the
       | trigger words you can muster to garner the interest of the public
       | at large.
        
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       (page generated 2024-10-06 23:00 UTC)