By NATASHA SINGER
Published: September 27, 2012 113 Comments
Federal regulators are about to take the biggest steps in more than a decade to protect children online.
McDonald’s invites children who visit HappyMeal.com to upload their photos so they can make collages or videos.
The moves come at a time when major corporations, app developers and data miners appear to be collecting information about the online activities of millions of young Internet users without their parents’ awareness, children’s advocates say. Some sites and apps have also collected details like children’s photographs or locations of mobile devices; the concern is that the information could be used to identify or locate individual children.