CDP Institute

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) has issued a set of guidelines to help businesses comply with privacy laws as they relate to children in the metaverse. Entitled “Building Guardrails for Child-Directed Advertising & Privacy in the Metaverse” it includes advise on helping kids distinguish content from ads and includes questions for businesses considering entering this area.

a signaling mechanism to enable consumers to more easily exercise their right to have their data discarded – and to help companies comply with deletion requests they received.

The mechanism, developed by privacy advocates, means consumers can do a single setting in privacy settings rather than opting out on a company-by-company basis.

Google will roll out a new Chrome feature that will enhance privacy by masking user IP addresses. IP addresses allow websites and online services to track activities across websites, but unlike with third-party cookies, users don’t have a direct way to avoid that tracking. The new Google Chrome feature, which will be rolled out in stages, will route third-party traffic from specific domains through proxies, rendering user IP addresses invisible to the domains.

For three years, Apple claimed it was protecting the unique MAC Wi-Fi addresses of iPhones and iPads when those joined a network, but it’s just been revealed that this feature doesn’t actually work. In fact, while this unique address was supposed to have been hidden and replaced with a private one, Apple devices have continued to display the real one. This means individuals can be tracked from network to network because the permanent MAC still broadcasted to all other connected devices, but just in a different field.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been drafting an AI ethics and governance guide that skews far more business-friendly than the EU had hoped, according to an exclusive report from Reuters, which gained access to confidential draft of the guidance. The draft, which is currently being circulated to tech companies for feedback, by the 10-member ASEAN group of countries, is expected to release this winter.

Clearly something’s wrong when patients are apprehensive about sharing their data with their healthcare providers. However, according to the Prescribing Privacy Healthcare Report, new from consent management company, Cassie, 72% of US consumers are concerned about potential misuse, and 50% of the 800 consumers surveyed say they trust tech companies more than medical providers to care for their data.

While we don’t agree on much, there is laudable consensus behind a massive Meta lawsuit, which declares addicting kids to social platforms and causing a youth mental health crisis is deceitful and must be stopped. The lawsuit has been filed in California by 33 states and supported by 9 attorneys general and the District of Columbia. It claims that to maximize profit, Meta also misled the public about how dangerous its Instagram and Facebook platforms are and that it concealed how it manipulates children and teens.

In response to EU’s strict regulations, Meta announced this week it will halt ad displays for teens and instead use a subscription-based model for social platforms. However, while Meta plans to start this November 6th, it also said it will be temporary as the company assesses implications of new EU regulations and there will be further updates forthcoming.

This includes a role for the federal government and provides oversight over safety tests companies use to evaluate conversation bots, such as Chat GPT and will introduce industry standards for identifying AI driven products.

If you’re still looking for a Halloween costume, maybe a creepy privacy theme is the way to go. Lots of choices, whether you want to go as a spying car, a furtive robot, or a globally connected refrigerator, you can scare friends and neighbors who may not realize just how thoroughly and rapidly their privacy is being taken away. Mozilla, which has been tracking corporate privacy for fifteen years, is now setting benchmarks and will identify trends.