Bill Alters Marketing For Kids

Motivated by fears that sex offenders can buy marketing information about children, lawmakers introduced a bill Wednesday that would give parents control over the sale of that data.

“Most parents have no idea that information about their children is for sale by hundreds of list vendors,” said the bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Bob Franks, R-N.J.

Franks said companies that sell marketing data can get the information from sources that include children’s “birthday clubs” at fast-food restaurants or supermarket surveys about a family’s buying habits.

The bill, which is sponsored in the Senate by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, would bar the sale or purchase of such information about children without a parent’s consent.

Parents also could require list vendors or solicitors to disclose where they got information about their children, and where they distributed that data.

The measure would prevent prisoners or convicted sex offenders from processing information about a child.

Lawmakers cited accounts of prison inmates contracted to handle consumer data. In a recent report by KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, a reporter used the name of Richard Davis, on trial in California for the slaying of 12-year-old Polly Klass, to obtain a printout with the ages and addresses of 5,500 children in the Pasadena area.

“This is a victims list waiting to happen,” Feinstein said.