Channel One News angered parents and educators when they asked children for personal information.
Channel One wants to know about your child. Obligation has stopped them before but now they are back pushing the envelope.
To get information from children the common practice among marketing firms like Channel One is to stage a contest. Dangle something children want in front of them and then tell them that you have to supply personal information in order to get a chance for the prize.
It’s as old as the hills. Channel One executives are doing nothing that hasn’t been done by hucksters that came before them.
Instead of supplying children with webcasts during the summer with their anchor/reporters, Channel One is concentrating on getting more information from their children visitors.
Channel One wants to give children a NSync CD and T-shirt, but you have to enter their contest.
Your child must supply his or her name, age, name of their school, email address, street address, city, state and ZIP.
“This is outrageous,” said Obligation president Jim Metrock. “Parents must let Channel One and their parent company, Primedia know that this is irresponsible and reckless. They are getting children to become use to supplying personal identifying information to strangers. When will the exploitation stop?”
The only protection for children is a warning that appears when the child clicks on the N’Sync contest button. “You must be at least 13 years old (sic) to enter the contest.” Then the child is told that by clicking the OK button they confirm that they are at least 13. The Channel One executives think this will protect them (the executives) from the strict new FTC rules concerning soliciting information from children.
But it won’t There is no warning to children about how this information is going to be used by Channel One. There needs to be a statement telling children where to go to read the privacy statement for the web site.
Better than that, Channel One should get out of the business of gathering personal identifying information about children.
Metrock said, “I urge Paul Folkemer, Jeff Ballabon, Noreen Clarke, Jim Ritts, and Roger Wolfson and any other Channel One executive who has any authority to stop this assault on children. Don’t ever ask a child for any personal information. Parents don’t want you prying into their children’s life.”
