Health, Safety & the Environment

According to journalist Larry Seltzer, there are new “social networking” sites that are harvesting our children’s personal identifying information (“PII”) and using that information for suspect commercial purposes.  One such company, called Tagged, which Seltzer describes in his article as a MySpace wannabee, blatantly exploits teenagers.  The article should be required reading for those of us concerned about the inappropriate use of personal information transmitted over the Internet on this type of site.  During registration, users of Tagged are required to provide information concerning their demographics and consumer behavior, such as eye color, style, personality type, favorite color, sport, food, activity or TV show, post-graduation plans or graduation year.  Eye color? It is all extremely creepy, particularly as Tagged’s contractual Terms of Service make clear that Tagged ”…..may share the e-mail address and/or other personally identifiable information of any registered user with third parties for marketing purposes……and with parties to target advertising”. Worse, these third-parties can insert tracking devices into your PC, referred to as pixel tags, to gather additional information and sell the information they collect.  All of the social networking sites have intrusive and privacy invasive aspects.  Some are just a whole lot worse than the others.  Teenagers are particularly vulnerable to come-ons from these sites particularly when an invitation to participate appears to come from a trusted friend.  This is not generally the case!