Internet Scam Targets Children
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Every year at holiday time children are inundated with television commercials touting the latest toy. Now parents have a new concern: websites trying to lure their children with promises of an expensive game system in exchange for their personal information.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Temple University Dr. Abbe Forman says the possibilities are endless and scary!
"You click on something that an advertiser that puts up there. They can drop something called a web bug onto your computer, which will track where you go and it will report back to them."
Forman says advertisers are working extremely hard to get you to click on their ad. It's hard enough to resist as an adult, let alone a child. And the consequences could be steep.
"Anytime you click on an advertiser those people need to get paid, and those people don't get paid by us just looking at the ad. Everytime we click there is the potential for something."
She suggests that parents sit down with their children and go over a list of approved websites, and limit the children to those. Forman says now is the time to double check what protective software you've installed. You may need to add more.
Reported by Michelle Durham, KYW Newsradio
