DwightDeGroff.com - Tech that Matters

The list of companies that use their software to gather and subsequently sell marketing data grows every day. Do you think it is mere coincidence that Google ads seem to frequently follow your recent on-line searches? Have you ever wondered why Google offers you all of their services (search, e-mail, on-line documents, 411 service) for free? Well, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are using all of the data you provide for profit and to further refine their technologies. Tim O’Reilly has a (now fairly dated) blog on why he believes Google started offering their 411 service that I am inclined to agree with: Google is using the “millions of voices, millions of accents to train speech recognition systems”. Why not, right? Well, it turns out Google isn’t alone (*gasp*!!!1!!)

“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.” Today, Michael Masnick of TechDirt, turned me onto a story that “one of the top providers in the space doesn’t just monitor what kids do for parents, but collects all the data — including the text of chat room discussions — and resells it to marketers.”

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.

A reminder to parents and non-parents alike… learn about software before installing and using it. Apparently there is an option available for parents to opt out of this information “sharing”, but it is only available via the company’s website. You know those annoying “Terms of Service” agreements that we all scroll and click through without reading? Well, maybe it’s time we starting paying a little more attention, eh?

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