Big Brother Barbie Sets Dangerous Precedent

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HEXiT

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Mar 13, 2011
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hahaha ETHICS and CORPORATE greed dont inhabit the same dictionary.

when are our representatives and law makers gonna put a stop to all this data mining and invasion of privacy.
 

rayden54

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I think that ship's already sailed. For better or worse we live in the world of Twitter and Facebook and parents GPS tracking their kids through their phones. I don't see this as being any worse than what's already out there-if anything it's probably safer than most. Treat it like you would any connected app.

That said I'm not too fond our connected society. I'm still hoping the laws'll catch up.
 

Christopher1

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hahaha ETHICS and CORPORATE greed dont inhabit the same dictionary.

when are our representatives and law makers gonna put a stop to all this data mining and invasion of privacy.
I don't see any ethics violation here, HEXiT. They are telling people what data this Barbie collects, what it sends to the servers, etc.
Nothing unethical about this thing. The problem is that this Barbie records EVERYTHING and sends EVERYTHING back to the servers. As anyone with an ounce of technical skill can tell you, with enough snippets of your voice, someone CAN fake an incriminating recording of you.
 

phlipat

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The corporate ethics are simple: no direct harm with an opportunity for direct profits. Welcome to business.

I sincerely hope that the government doesn't step in to outlaw these kinds of toys. The hope or desire that they do step in reflects a significant problem with society today. It's not the government's role to protect me from myself. I need to act and be free to act in my own best interest and that of my family. It's my responsibility to learn how these toys (or other connected devices work), evaluate the risks, and then decide and act on what risks I feel I can manage or live with. If I don't want the risk, then don't play the game. Don't use Facebook or buy the toy. If enough people don't want the risk, there won't be a market and businesses will make something else.

Make your own decision about what to buy, but don't blame the government for not outlawing the subject of your bad decisions.
 

p05esto

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Seriously, who cares? The paranoid helicopter parents are nuts. Who cares about this? Wow, a talking doll my kid can talk to. I'm sure Mattel is going to send pedos to my house. Get a grip people, this is an interesting and fun idea. If you don't like it then don't buy it. I have actual things to worry about. You think this thing is even capable of sending your address, credit card and social security number???? Let alone anything else at all useful to crooks? Please. It's impossible to know where exactly a device is located from an upload. At best you get an IP address, which requires a warrant at an ISP to get to, and it's still work from there. What exact data of yours is inside of this doll???? nothing
 

p05esto

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Seriously, who cares? The paranoid helicopter parents are nuts. Who cares about this? Wow, a talking doll my kid can talk to. I'm sure Mattel is going to send pedos to my house. Get a grip people, this is an interesting and fun idea. If you don't like it then don't buy it. I have actual things to worry about. You think this thing is even capable of sending your address, credit card and social security number???? Let alone anything else at all useful to crooks? Please. It's impossible to know where exactly a device is located from an upload. At best you get an IP address, which requires a warrant at an ISP to get to, and it's still work from there. What exact data of yours is inside of this doll???? nothing
 

jasonkaler

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I thought this was illegal on several levels.
a) it's invasion of privacy
b) they are targeting minors. Just because they have the parent's initial consent, doesn't mean they child will always be supervised while using the toy and may be recorded in private situations
 

Christopher1

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do people will ever understand that the cloud is not the way to go!
You need some proper English there, mate. Yes, the cloud is the way to go for some things.... storage of data that is properly encrypted so that no one can peer into it, backups of your computer properly encrypted, etc.
This Hello Barbie is something that the web HAS to be used for. There is just no processor that you can put into a Barbie (they are small by and large) to do this kind of processing work itself.
 

Christopher1

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I thought this was illegal on several levels.
a) it's invasion of privacy
b) they are targeting minors. Just because they have the parent's initial consent, doesn't mean they child will always be supervised while using the toy and may be recorded in private situations
Does not matter. Once a parent gives their consent for this to be used, it does not matter if the child is later unsupervised while using it, the permission does NOT automatically disappear once the parent leaves the room.
That is black letter law in America.
 

Steveymoo

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So what? What would a hacker even do with any of this speach information? "What do you want to be when you grow up? Super billionnaire astronaut firefighter!!!" Yeah, that's some super useful data right there.
 

apiltch

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Thanks for all of your comments. When I first heard about Hello Barbie from my colleague, Michael Andronico, I thought it was strange that so little was said in the press (and from ToyTalk / Mattel) about the privacy implications of this product. Now it seems like the media is catching on. I don't think ToyTalk is deliberately doing anything wrong; I'll take their good intentions at face value. However, any time you put this kind of sensitive data in the cloud, you're taking a risk.
 

LORD_ORION

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This is the new tactic governments use to sidesteps their own protective laws. They get corporations to do it, and then they have no legal problems using that data collection.

Personal information is already lost, the next step is creating other forms of identifiable data, such as voice, facial and health data.

You SHOULD be terrified of this kind of thing. Look up the Milgram experiment, and you'll discover the government doesn't have to look very hard to find people to work for them who will comply with any order, regardless of the ethics of the order.

Go read "The Authoritarians" (it's free) by Bob Altemeyer.. you should be terrified that unethical leaders intentionally hire submissive to authority workers who will follow any order. Now figure out what they intend to do with that data they are collecting based on what they have already been caught doing with little consequence.
 
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