{"id":362,"date":"2011-02-25T08:19:33","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T16:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/internetsafety.trendmicro.com\/?p=362"},"modified":"2011-02-25T08:19:33","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T16:19:33","slug":"googles-doodle-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/blog\/googles-doodle-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s Doodle Debacle and What It Means to Your Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Doodle<\/a>By Lynette T. Owens<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Google was exposed for an issue with their 4th<\/sup> annual \u201cDoodle 4 Google\u201d contest.\u00a0 The contest is designed to encourage creativity among students in grades K-12 in the U.S…\u00a0 It asks them to create a drawing using the Google logo.\u00a0 The winning entry is then displayed on the Google home page and the winner receives a college scholarship and a technology fund for their school.\u00a0 It\u2019s commendable to engage and reward students in this way and it\u2019s a fantastic way to build goodwill around a brand (not many brands valued so highly will allow people to mess with their logo).\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the misstep Google made in this 4th year is stunning, especially for a company that is closely scrutinized and many times criticized for its privacy practices.\u00a0 I took particular interest in this story and contest because we are also currently running a contest aimed at youth and schools.<\/p>\n

According to Google\u2019s contest site, they made one change in this 4th<\/sup> year which seems to have contributed to their mistake.\u00a0\u00a0 In the past, they only allowed kids to participate through their schools.\u00a0 But many parents had apparently expressed interest for their kids to participate despite the fact that their schools were not registered to do so.\u00a0 So they opened the gates to parent-sponsored entries as well as school-sponsored entries.<\/p>\n

When you register your child for their contest as a parent, you are asked for some basic information. You have to register online, hit submit, and then you receive a unique pre-registration ID.\u00a0 You need to include this ID with the necessary paperwork, which includes a parent consent form, and submit it with your child\u2019s doodle.<\/p>\n

The question that everyone is fussing over is \u201cWhy did the parent consent form require the last 4 digits of your child\u2019s social security number?\u201d<\/p>\n

After Bob Bowdon broke this story<\/a> in the Huffington Post early this week, Google has corrected the consent form.\u00a0 They are no longer asking for your child\u2019s social security number.\u00a0 (Although thanks to Bob, you can still see the original form<\/a>.)\u00a0 Google\u2019s explanation for the change?\u00a0 They originally needed this information to make sure there were no duplicate entries.\u00a0 They then realized they were already asking for enough information to help them identify duplicates.<\/p>\n

So, isn\u2019t that what the unique pre-registration ID was for in the first place?\u00a0 One doodle per child is allowed, the unique ID should be enough to distinguish one child from another.\u00a0 If you are a parent of 2 kids who enter, they will both have the same unique ID under your registration name, but each entry will have a different child\u2019s name.\u00a0 Still I wondered, why on earth did they ever need any part of a kid\u2019s social security number?<\/p>\n

Bowdon and others who have written about this since jumped to the obvious conclusion \u2013 they want to help advertisers market to your kids.\u00a0 If you have a child\u2019s city of birth, date of birth, and the last 4 digits of that number you can figure out the whole number. \u00a0This is true and everyone \u2013 parents or not \u2013 should be wary of providing this combination of information to participate in a contest.\u00a0 But I asked an executive at a very large advertising agency in New York who knows a lot about the data Google will provide to her, since she has spent millions on behalf of her clients on Google services over many years.\u00a0 A social security number is not valuable in and of itself \u2013 it is the data attached to it that could be.\u00a0 But it was still baffling to her why Google would have asked for such information on top of everything else they were already asking for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In our own contest, called the \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Story?\u201d Internet safety video contest, we are trying to engage young people on being safe, responsible users of the Internet. \u00a0Maintaining online privacy is one of the 3 contest categories (being a good online citizen (addressing issues of cyberbullying and harassment) and using a mobile phone wisely are the other 2 categories).\u00a0 So we of course we took great pains both last year and this year to ensure we were not infringing upon anyone\u2019s privacy or security in the process of trying to teach kids about that very topic.<\/p>\n

In comparison to Doodle 4 Google, the What\u2019s Your Story contest requires you to be 13 or older to register for the contest, with parental consent required for minors.\u00a0 We don\u2019t ask for city of birth, date of birth, or a social security number to participate. \u00a0If a parent or school registers as the contestant, kids can be in the videos that are submitted, but again, they cannot register if they are under 13.\u00a0 That is why Google\u2019s situation is so baffling to me. \u00a0We agonized over making sure we were compliant with laws like COPPA (which ensures children\u2019s information is not collected without the proper processes and security and privacy measures in place), while still trying to encourage youth participation.<\/p>\n

Rather than piece together some huge conspiracy theory and take stabs at Google\u2019s true motivations for requiring such detailed personal identifying information, I think it is more productive to focus on the lessons we can learn from this incident:<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 Never, ever give any information to a site that you don\u2019t have to. \u00a0That goes for your kids, too. \u00a0Many sites will denote the fields you \u201cmust provide\u201d to proceed.\u00a0 But if you don\u2019t have to provide it, skip it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 In a contest submission, nobody should ever ask for your child\u2019s social security number. \u00a0You may need to later provide it if you win a cash prize, for tax purposes.\u00a0 But to register for the contest? \u00a0Never.<\/p>\n

3 \u2013 Be very careful when giving out personally identifying information like place of birth and social security numbers.\u00a0 There are very few business or government reasons to do this online.\u00a0 If you need to do it, read the site\u2019s privacy polices, and know what they intend to do with the information.\u00a0 If it\u2019s not clear to you, don\u2019t use it or contact the organization and ask them.<\/p>\n

4 \u2013 Always, always use a reputable, up-to-date security software product on any device you connect to the Internet on. \u00a0We at Trend Micro obviously have many of options to choose from, including our product called Titanium. \u00a0Click here for more information<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5 \u2013 And lastly, don\u2019t lose heart on letting your kids engage in contests or other great services or forums online, including the Doodle 4 Google contest.\u00a0 Was it just a gross oversight by Google?\u00a0 Were they intending to do something more?\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 They\u2019re not asking for the data now, so it\u2019s a moot point.\u00a0 It looks like a great contest, so don\u2019t shy away from participating in it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And of course, consider participating in our 2nd<\/sup> annual \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Story?\u201d internet safety video contest.\u00a0 You can actually even submit a video about protecting personal information online \u2013 and teach other kids and families while you are at it.<\/p>\n

The cost?\u00a0 A video no longer than 2 minutes. \u00a0The prize?\u00a0 $10,000. \u00a0To win? \u00a0Get your video in and get your family, friends and communities to view it.<\/p>\n

For more information on our Internet safety contest, visit http:\/\/whatsyourstory.trendmicro.com<\/a><\/p>\n

For more internet safety and security tips and advice, visit www.trendmicro.com\/internetsafety<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, Google was exposed for an issue with their 4th annual \u201cDoodle 4 Google\u201d contest. The contest is designed to encourage creativity among students in grades K-12 in the U.S. It asks them to create a drawing using the Google logo. The winning entry is then displayed on the Google home page and the winner receives a college scholarship and a technology fund for their school. It\u2019s commendable to engage and reward students in this way.<\/p>\n

But the misstep Google made in this 4th year is stunning, especially for a company that is closely scrutinized and many times criticized for its privacy practices. I took particular interest in this story and contest because we are also currently running a contest aimed at youth and schools. I am still baffled as I compare how we’ve chosen to run our contests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,8,6,5,11,25,10,45,23,28,12],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-coppa","tag-digital-citizenship","tag-education","tag-internet-safety","tag-kids","tag-online-privacy","tag-online-safety","tag-pii","tag-privacy","tag-right-to-privacy","tag-social-networking","wpautop"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}