This Wall Street Journal article explains how popular children’s websites are tracking children more invasively and aggressively than top sites targeting adults.

The Journal examined 50 sites popular with U.S. teens and children to see what tracking tools they installed on a test computer. As a group, the sites placed 4,123 “cookies,” “beacons” and other pieces of tracking technology. That is 30% more than were found in an analysis of the 50 most popular U.S. sites overall, which are generally aimed at adults.

The most prolific site: Snazzyspace.com, which helps teens customize their social-networking pages, installed 248 tracking tools. Its operator described the site as a “hobby” and said the tracking tools come from advertisers.

NOTE: Snazzyspace is not included in KangaPlace.

Starfall.com, an education site for young children, installed the fewest, five.

NOTE: Starfall is a favorite at KangaPlace. :)

Many kids’ sites are heavily dependent on advertising, which likely explains the presence of so many tracking tools. Research has shown children influence hundreds of billions of dollars in annual family purchases.

The WSJ article helps bring this problem to the attention of parents and educators.

Where does KangaPlace stand in all this?

I want to be clear on this. KangaPlace does not collect any information from children. I don’t install trackers and I don’t display or host ADs. As a parent myself, I greatly value my privacy and that of my children. KangaPlace fully respects your child’s privacy as well.

What can I do about it?

A WSJ Blog Article talks about what parents can do about protecting their child’s privacy.

Since most of the trackers are placed by ADs, the easiest approach is to block ADs. An excellent tool I personally use and recommend is a Firefox plugin called Adblock Plus.

• Firefox is a free, OpenSource browser that I recommend over Internet Explorer. It is 100% free, and safer than Internet Explorer.

• AdblockPlus is a free Firefox plugin that blocks ADs and their tracking cookies. Check out their site for a video demonstration of how it works. I love it and use it on all of my computers (especially the one for the kids).

What is Malware?

Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner’s informed consent. It is a combination of the words malicious and software. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code.

Most computer users are not familiar with the term and don’t use it. Instead, “computer virus” is commonly used incorrectly to describe all kinds of malware, though not all malware are viruses.

What is a Computer Virus?

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. A virus can only spread from one computer to another when its “host” (the infected file) is taken to an uninfected computer. This can happen by a user sending it over a network, the Internet, or by carrying it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, or USB drive.

Today, viruses are somewhat less common than network-borne worms, due to the popularity of the Internet. Anti-virus software, originally designed to protect computers from viruses, has in turn expanded to cover worms and other threats such as spyware, identity theft and adware.

Ways in which viruses and worms spread:

• Web browsing security holes
• E-mail
• Instant Messaging
• File sharing systems (Peer-to-peer networks)
• USB drives
• Shared network drives

Types of Viruses

Trojan horses

A Trojan horse, or simply trojan, is a piece of software which appears to perform a certain action but in fact performs another such as a computer virus. Trojan horses are different from a virus because a trojan cannot replicate automatically.

Worms

A worm is a piece of software that uses computer networks and security flaws to create copies of itself. A copy of the worm will scan the network for any other machine that has a specific security flaw. It replicates itself to the new machine using the security flaw, and then begins scanning and replicating anew.

E-mail viruses

An e-mail virus will use an e-mail message as a mode of transport, and usually will copy itself by automatically mailing itself to hundreds of people in the victim’s address book.

Often, a malicious file like a Word document, PDF, image, video, batch file, etc. can be attached to the e-mail and the user is tricked into opening the file. There are software protections that will scan e-mail attachments for you. Additionally, it is a wise practice to not open video files and others in an e-mail attachment.

Logic Bombs

A logic bomb is a piece of code intentionally inserted into a software system that will set off a malicious function when specified conditions are met. Software that is inherently malicious, such as viruses and worms, often contain logic bombs that execute a certain payload at a pre-defined time or when some other condition is met. This technique can be used by a virus or worm to gain momentum and spread before being noticed. Many viruses attack their host systems on specific dates, such as Friday the 13th or April Fool’s Day. Malware that activates on certain dates are often called “time bombs”.

KangaPlace Free Pick

Windows: Avast! Free Home Edition – Free and commercial versions

Additional Resources

• ChildSafe International – Virus Detection / Elimination
• PcPro UK – Compares commercial and free Anti-Virus packages
• PC Mag Compares Commercial Anti-Virus Packages
• AV-Comparatives – independent comparisons for Anti-virus software
• AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
• Consumer Research Anti-Virus Comparison

I read a well written article that breaks down a warning email from a major security vendor about an expired anti-virus subscription. Ever gotten one of those? The AD is designed to scare the user into buying the anti-virus software whether they need it or not. The really scary part is that they want the user to click a link in the e-mail which is actually both unsafe and unwise.

Check out the full article – Poor Windows users

Security begins with education. But education means users won’t be easily impressed with scary emails and may not actually cash out money for a rather mediocre security product they don’t need in the first place. Teaching people how to use their computers contrasts the primary goals of security vendors, which is to make profit.

It’s true. If the major security vendors wanted to actually make users safer and computer systems more secure, they would do more to educate the users. But that isn’t the goal. They don’t seem to care what the user does so long as they get the money.

So how do people who aren’t security experts get the basic computer safety education they need? Who’s providing it?

That’s one of our goals here. To help give clear, summarized information on security and point people to more complete resources. The information is all available for free and is all over. But most people don’t have the time or interest to go hunt it down.

Security begins and ends with education. The most vulnerable part of the system is usually the user. Tricking a user to give up private information is the easiest way to “hack” the system. Hopefully that will improve with time.

Has your child ever accidentally stumbled onto a “bad” website? I have 3 little girls and this happened to me. That’s how KangaPlace was born.

When I wasn’t around, my oldest daughter typed in the address for a safe site she wanted to visit. Well, as you can imagine, she just misspelled it by 1 letter and bam she landed in filth.

I realized my kids had no good way to find safe sites like Care Bears, Webkinz or Hannah Montana.

Enter KangaPlace...

KangaPlace uses “pouches” to create a safe environment where kids can jump from the pouch to a safe site. When they want to do something else, they jump back to the pouch and then on to the next site.

I create a pouch for each child, personalize it, and I pick the website links that are best for her and put them in the pouch. Then I make it easy for her to start from her pouch.

Now no more accidental jumps to puddles of filth. And I don’t have to hover to help them get where they want to go. Ahhh.

Use the free demo pouches anytime you like. Signup to create custom pouches for your kids.

You can read more about how KangaPlace started on the about page.