Apps for Kids Are Data Magnets; FTC Rules to Kick In
While 7-year-old Eros ViDemantay played with a kid’s app on his father’s phone, tracing an elephant, behind the scenes a startup company backed by Google Inc. was collecting information from the device — including its email address and a list of other apps installed on his phone.
“My jaw dropped,” says Lee ViDemantay, Eros’s father and a fifth-grade teacher at the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Why do they need to know all that?” The app, called How to Draw — Easy Lessons, also sent two of the phone’s main ID numbers.