Cool Hunting the Kids' Digital Playground: Datamining and the Privacy Debates in Children's Online Entertainment Sites

This paper takes up the social and theoretical implications surrounding the information management practices found within children's online entertainment sites. Although the increasing integration of information and data gathering systems is oriented towards enhancing organizational efficiency and consumer service provisions, explicating the administration of online gaming community information infrastructures reveals the threats of "digital redlining" or "weblining." Empirical data from ongoing case studies of popular children's game sites are presented to reflect on discourses of privacy, data protection and the ethical dimensions of data mining. These issues are seen as especially relevant in view of the recent implementation of national privacy legislation which apply to children's online culture. Child users are not only highly targeted by data mining and market research practices but also disadvantaged by a limited awareness of the legal and ethical implications of their online interactions with commercial spaces.