<div>Thanks to danah for the thoughtful response,</div><div><br></div>I think in the end, your study does a good job of demonstrating that the attempt by COPPA to address issues of maturity/safety online is problematic in a variety of ways -- including those associated with the examples you cite in your most recent post. <div>
<br><div>What seems less convincing, based on your own findings, is the broader attempt to contest the notion of age-related restrictions of any kind on information collection. If, as you reasonably argue, legal regulation (or as you put it, "Protectionism from the State"), is ineffective when it doesn't accord with social norms, your own study indicates that the majority of parents (57 percent) say they support restrictions on data collection (tracking?) even if it means shutting down their children's access to social networking sites. That seems like a pretty significant finding. The "rock-solid" education plan you propose would most likely raise this percentage, based on what we've seen in the research on attitudes to tracking so far (again, Chris Hoofnagle and Joe Turow's work is extremely helpful on this). </div>
<div><br></div><div>Empowering people to speak out against what is not right often leads to legal reforms -- and I wouldn't want to relegate those to the vilified category of "Protectionism from the State". A while back the FTC was talking about requiring Web sites to include a "no track" option; That would certainly give parents (and the rest of us) a choice, but it would likely be disparaged by industry as over-reaching by the heavy hand of the state (and, of course, a threat to the online business model -- which tells us something about what types of choices the market makes available and what kinds it shuts down). </div>
<div><br></div><div>General claims like "Parents don't want government playing in-loco parentis even when it's well-intended" probably aren't as useful as more specific findings regarding particular practices and preferences. I don't doubt the statement is true in a broad-brush kind of way, and most parents would agree with it, but I don't think it means parents would want all age-specific laws revoked so they could decide on their own whether their child is "ready" (to drive, vote, join the military, etc.). Interpreting data like yours means figuring out the most sensible way of reconciling broad claims about who should take responsibility for children with specific findings about the type of regulation people actually support. </div>
<div><br></div><div>(as a related aside, it seems worth pointing out that the question "<em style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px; text-align: -webkit-center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Who should have the final say about whether or not your child should be able to use Web sites and online services?" </em><span style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px; text-align: -webkit-center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">has a vaguely polemic feel to it, and not just because COPPA does not have the final say about access (as you scrupulously point out in your article). I'm not sure I'd call it a leading question, but when you ask this question, you pretty much know what kind of answer you're going to get. Framed differently you would likely get a very different response "Would you support a law that restricts marketers from gathering detailed information about everything your child does online?" for example.) </span></div>
<div><br></div><div>I'm not trying to argue for COPPA as is. The attempt to reform COPPA is clearly an important one -- but I think it pushes the argument farther than the findings warrant to call for the elimination of all age-related forms of regulation, <i>even those that the majority of parents would support</i>. I'd be open to further arguments about the ways in which age-specific restrictions might, say, hinder more general forms of protection (or bolster an commercial model that we would be better off without), but the tone of your article pushes in a somewhat different direction: if you frame laws that limit tracking as "state protectionism" that limits free choice in the marketplace, you put yourself in a tricky position if you are really trying to argue (in the long run) for more comprehensive restrictions on tracking.</div>
<div><br></div><div>You raise an important issue about the difficulties of regulating collection: that, as long as people post information to a Web site, that site is involved in data collection. I suppose this poses a problem for the kind of do-not-track legislation proposed by the FTC -- would it mean sites like Facebook couldn't save users' photos and comments? In this case, regulations on use certainly make sense -- although I'm not sure why age-related restrictions on <i>both</i> collection and use wouldn't also make sense ("do not track kids' behavior online by capturing information about their activity - in addition to what they themselves post" alongside "do not use the information they post to market to them"). </div>
<div><br></div><div>One of the most important findings of your study, at least to my mind, is the one that you mention in passing in your response: "we couldn't even run measures on what parents knew because their basic literacy was so low. They simply don't understand how targeted marketing works let alone how data is shared, sold, or used." As you point out, this is borne out by the research, and suggests that an important part of the online business model relies on practices about which the public is woefully ill informed and that it may not support once it learns more about them. </div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><div><br></div><div> <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 7:48 AM, danah boyd <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:zephoria@zephoria.org" target="_blank">zephoria@zephoria.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">[My apologies for my tardiness in responding; this week has been challenging.]<br>
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I totally agree with you that tracking is indeed a core issue here. But it's also clear that it's not something that parents, children, or adults in general understand. COPPA doesn't educate people about tracking. It basically says, if you're 13 or older, you can be tracked no question. If you're under 13, you need your parents' permission to get tracked/to get access.<br>
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I do not believe that age restrictions do anything to address tracking. Adults are clueless about tracking. Chris Hoofnagle's work showed this. And we couldn't even run measures on what parents knew because their basic literacy was so low. They simply don't understand how targeted marketing works let alone how data is shared, sold, or used.<br>
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