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New Mexico’s attorney genral has filed suit against Tiny Lab Productions, creator of mobile games like Fun Kid Racing, accusing the firm of violating a law put in place to ensure the privacy and protection of users under the age of 13.
As well as Tiny Lab, the filing names advertising companies – some under the banner of Google and Twitter – and accuses them too of being involved in the illegal collection of children’s data, thus violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The suit also names Google specifically for including titles such as Fun Kid Racing in the family section of the Google Play store, accusing the company of misleading its customers as a result.
Tiny Lab and the advertising companies named – including AdMob, AerServ, AppLovin, Google, InMovi PTE, ironSource USA, MoPub, and Twitter – accuses those involved of sharing sensitive data which is supposed to be not collected about children under the age of 13, as well as of sharing elements like location and demographic categorisation with third parties, in order to build targeted advertising profiles.
The full complaint, as shared by the New York Times, can be found through here.
Details in the newspaper piece point out that it isn’t just the named companies in the complaint which flout the child protection law, with plenty – potentially thousands – of children’s apps flagged as sending sensitive data about children to third parties.
Tiny Lab’s games have been removed from the Google Play and Amazon App stores, though there’s nothing specific saying this is because of the allegations.
