Tuesday, May 16, 2000

Teenagers Will Trade Private Online Information for Gifts, Study Finds By SCOTT CARLSON A report scheduled to be released today by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center says that many teenagers are willing to reveal private information about their families to online marketers in exchange for gifts. The report is based on a survey of parents and children about their perceptions of the Internet. "We were really interested in the way in which the industrial and social context of the family is impacting on the way the family tries to deal with these new media challenges," says Joseph Turow, a professor at the university's Annenberg School for Communication who directed the study. "What are the implications for family information privacy? And how is the Web changing the senses of family boundaries, particularly as they relate to family privacy?" Mr. Turow says he focused on teenagers' willingness to reveal information about themselves because they aren't currently protected by federal laws. The Childrens' Online Privacy Protection Act, which went into effect last month, bars online marketers from collecting information from children under age 13 without parents' permission. In his report, Mr. Turow recommends that "limited Federal regulation" be established to protect teenagers from online marketers. Mr. Turow's study found that teenagers, more often than parents or younger children, were willing to tell marketers what they do on the weekends, whether they have cheated in school, whether their parents speed when they drive, where their families shop, and other private information about their families' activities. The study found that 45 percent of 10- to 17-year-olds were willing to give online marketers their names, addresses, and information about "what they like or don't like" in exchange for a "great free gift" worth up to $100. Only 29 percent of the adults surveyed said they would reveal that information. The survey was conducted in January and February through telephone interviews with 1,001 parents who have children age 8 to 17 and have Internet connections in their homes. The researchers also interviewed 304 children age 10 to 17; half of those children were selected from families in which the parents had also been interviewed. "The question is, Should parents have some sense of norms with their families about what they want to give up?" Mr. Turow says. "This is the beginning of a revolution in the way that data about family goes out of the home." Information issues on the Web are of increasing concern to privacy advocates. Online companies, such as the advertising heavyweight DoubleClick, are beginning to track and aggregate information about the activities and interests of Web users through "cookies," small data files that are placed on a computer when a user logs on to a site. That information is then used to customize online advertisements and content. (The Chronicle uses DoubleClick software to rotate ads on its Webpages but does not share any user information with DoubleClick. For more information, see our privacy policy.) "I don't think that people realize that when they go to a search engine and look for something, that becomes a cookie that is open for marketing exploitation. It's manipulation," says Robert Ellis Smith, who is both publisher of the newsletter Privacy Journal and author of Ben Franklin's Web Site: Privacy and Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the Internet, published this month by the newsletter. "Even the nonadvertising information on a Web site can be changed -- the articles of a newspaper or magazine -- based on your interests. That's a major shift from traditional publishing." Mr. Smith says the report should make a stronger case for regulations guarding teenage users. Mr. Turow "is a little timid in his recommendation," Mr. Smith says. "I think the results should show more outrage, that kids could be seduced this easily and that there are companies that are doing the seducing. "I compare it to the offline world. If this were going on in a playground, Americans would be outraged. They would insist on some sort of protection that would prevent adults from collecting personal information from kids." But the study also found that parents have seemingly contradictory beliefs about the security and educational benefits of the Internet. More than 85 percent of the parents surveyed said that children learn useful things online and that the Internet is good tool for education. And 74 percent of the parents said that kids who don't have Internet access are at a disadvantage. However, almost three-fourths of the parents also feared that their children would reveal private information about the family online and that their kids would visit sexually explicit sites. Only half of the parents said that the Internet was a safe place for children to spend time, and half said that family members who spend a lot of time online talk to each other less than they otherwise would. "I think people are trying to figure out how to use this tool, this new part of their lives," Mr. Turow says. "And marketers and media are trying to figure out how they can use them to their own benefits. On the global level, companies like Time-Warner and Disney are trying to make sense of the new media environment. And families have to make sense of the new media environment. "We have to ask what this means for the future of the family in a time when the speed at which information is going in and out of the house is being redefined." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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