A USA Today report says that Google is developing new versions of its most popular products that will be aimed directly at children under 12.
According to the publication, Google Search, YouTube , and Chrome will be released first, due to their “widespread consumption.” Pavni Diwanji, technical vice president, said that “The big driver within the company is everyone who has kids, so there’s a push to change our products to be fun and safe for kids.”
Here the company is rather overreacting, and quite a bit since it admits it in a way. On the one hand, we will watch out for children, and on the other hand, it is even tracking children with its products to better target its ads. The FTC requires all companies to have parental consent before using any data from children.
Google is not going to accept this without a fight, of course. Diwanji said that “we expect this move to be controversial, but the simple truth is that kids already have technology in schools and at home, so what we have to do is just figure out how they can best use it.” He could easily say: “since they have technology in schools and at home, why not take advantage of it?” but that’s probably only said in the company’s roadmap meetings.
There is no information regarding when Google will release its “safe” products for children, but since the statements have already begun, it is very likely that we will see them in 2015.
