Harmless games, teaching, funny cartoon films: Many Internet sites trap children with free offers. However, this has a purpose: Our children are to be spied on.
Children and Internet? Most parents primarily think of dangers such as violence, bullying and pornography. Especially young target group oriented offers, such as the German children websites helles-koepfchen.de, kividoo.de or spielaffe.de promise rescue. No one expects anything bad on those colorful, harmless appearing pages. But appearances are deceptive, as our investigation shows. On many of these websites, children are spied on without mercy and then bombed with targeted advertising.
Trackers are spying in the background
The knowledge portal Helles-Koepfchen.de for children and young people promises high-quality content in teaching and journalistic terms and aims to provide a good overview of the the websites that are especially for children. Despite that, there are a total of 31 so-called “Trackers” that follow around our children from website to website, day after day.
By analyzing different individual online-characteristics, advertising companies can clearly identify the children, thereby creating an accurate personality profile. The companies behind it record the read articles, the watched videos and played online games and after a while they know exactly who they are dealing with. Age, gender, preferences, learning progress and development status – the child unconsciously leaves a trace which adds up to a personality profile. Even things such as a financial background, possible learning difficulties or social problems become visible. The collected data then lands on servers all over the world, with often weak data protection.
But there are also positive examples. For example, the range offered by the German children’s website Blinde-Kuh.de proved to be harmless. WDRMaus.de and kidsville.de are also recommended. There is only one tracker on both sides, and they are harmless variants that do not create personality profiles.
Manipulation through targeted advertising
The consequence of analyzing the surfing behavior is, on the one hand, questionable advertising offers in the form of so-called personalized advertising. Children in particular react to this, because they are curious and often want to know what lies behind these ads. Moreover, they often do not even recognize many advertising forms as advertising. In this way, companies succeed in influencing the behavior of children and push them to buy certain products.
But there are still more dangers: it becomes tricky, for example, if fraudsters hide behind colorful banners like games that are used solely for passing on personal data, or free offers that turn out to be subscription traps.
On the other hand, advertising companies can earn a lot of money by collecting the personal profiles. But who wants profitable companies to know everything about their own children?
Protect children from theft with the eBlocker Family
If you don’t want your children to be a part of this tracking game, you have to protect them. Instead of preparing every single device for secure surfing, the eBlocker Family does this task in no time. For this, the small box is only docked to the router by cable and is powered – ready. From then on, it reliably protects all devices from any tracking services. The family version of the eBlocker also allows you to adjust your own settings for each member of the household. Children benefit from special Parental Control features that shield them from violence, gambling, pornography and inappropriate content.