Surveillance Capitalism has a

Problem

COPPA

Rory Mir

slides.com/cypurr/coppa-problem

Outline:

• Surveillance Capitalism?

• COPPA?
• Example?

[1] Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019.

[2] Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. 6501–6505, 1998

Surveillance Capitalism

• Dr. Zuboff, social psychologist
• Working backwards:
  • Customers as a service
  • Controlling/predicting users
  • ...lots and lots of data?
• Probably doesn't "work" [3]
• Political/Psychological impacts

[3]: Tucker, C. E. (2014). Social Networks, Personalized Advertising, and Privacy Controls. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(5), 546–562. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.10.0355

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

[2] Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. 6501–6505, 1998

• Passed in 1998
• In response to KidsCom.com
• Lets FTC charge as "unfair or deceptive act or practice "
• Summarized by this excerpt:

Children Online

[5] Holloway, D., Green, L., & Livingstone, S. (2013). Zero to eight: Young children and their internet use.

• Child Protections:
  • Nurturance Rights
  • Self‐Determination Rights
  • Tensions with Parents [4]
• By age 9, 50-70% of children online [5]
  • YouTube in top 2 across ages until 20s

[4]  Livingstone, S., & Bolber, M. (2006). Regulating the internet at home: contrasting the perspectives of children and parents.

Example: YouTube

Algorithm Optimization

• Autoplay Algorithm
  • Keywords associated with watch history?
• "Pregnant Frozen Elsa Giving Birth Joker Attack | Spiderman Hulk Superheros Movies Compilation"
• Parallels with personalized advertisements

Text