In June 1998, the FTC reported to Congress that 89 percent of 212 children's Web sites collected personal information about children without requiring some form of parental control over the process. According to a University of New Hampshire study, 20 percent of young people between the ages of 10 and 17 received unwanted sexual solicitations online in 2000, and only a quarter of them told their parents. Nancy Willard, a psychologist-attorney who directs Responsible Netizen, has this to say about the invasion of a child's online privacy:
The emergence of an understanding of the appropriate boundaries of personal privacy is clearly a developmental process, tied to the child's emerging cognitive development. Technically proficient children are using the Internet before they have the cognitive ability to appreciate the possible con- sequences of disclosure of personal information.
Dot.com companies can use this to their advantage in seeking to mold the children's perceptions about personal privacy. They are able to accomplish this largely outside of parental influence because most parents do not know about the actions and intentions of these companies.
Dot.com companies are asking children to disclose personal information and then using that infor- mation to develop a close relationship with the child for the purpose of influencing consumer behavior.... Children raised in such an environment will likely fail to develop an understanding of the appropriate boundaries of personal privacy. They will be extremely vulnerable to all manner of manip- ulation and exploitation, not only from corporate marketers, but also from scam artists, cults, and sex- ual predators.
Do you agree that there are special concerns regarding privacy for children online?