Child files lawsuit about Nickelodeon website "cookies"

[mountaineer]

Cookies not good for kids, lawsuit says
December 21, 2012 4:36 pm
  By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Jeannette child has filed a lawsuit, seeking class action status, accusing Viacom Inc. and Google Inc. of improperly using tiny computer programs called cookies to track the online activity of children.

Identified only as K.T., the child is under 13 years old and has registered to use the websites nick.com and nickjr.com, owned by Viacom and associated with the Nickelodeon television franchise, the complaint filed in U.S. District Court said. By registering with the websites, K.T. accepted the placement on the family's home computer of cookies -- scripts that communicate information on Internet use to Viacom and Google, it said.

The companies, the lawsuit said, "conspired to use and profit from said information for targeted marketing directed at" K.T. and other children.

"Only Santa should spy on little boys and girls," said attorney Douglas A. Campbell, who filed the lawsuit on K.T.'s behalf. He called the tracking of children's online activity "pernicious."

Mr. Campbell said similar lawsuits have been filed in other states. "This is coming to a head."

Officials for Viacom and Google could not be immediately reached.

The lawsuit said that because the marketing is aimed at children under 13, it violates provisions of anti-wiretapping laws and the Video Privacy Protection Act, and intrudes upon children's seclusion while unjustly enriching the companies.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the companies have violated the law, plus unspecified damages.

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Whatever happened to parents keeping an eye on the websites their pre-teens visit and register with? Who doesn't know a website with which you've registered is going to use cookies?

[mountaineer]

Two good comments: 

This is insane. The parent is probably the one that registered the kid in the first place. My kids are 11 and don't know how to fill out one of those forms. What's wrong, the parent is mad now cuz her kids keeps wanting everything on the ad? It's no different than them running toy commercials mostly on kid channels on TV. Wow. I wish I had nothing else to do with my time than look around to blame other people for my short comings as a parent....


Just to review. You sit your child in front of a tv that has ads targeted towards them and then you sit them in front of a computer and are upset t he ads are targeting them?

[Oceander]

This is nonsense on stilts.  If the child herself signed up, then she violated the terms of service and the accounts should simply be summarily closed.  If her parents or someone else 18 or older signed up for the accounts, then they consented to the use of cookies and there is no case whatsoever.

[olde north church]

snotty little brats shouldn't have Internet access.