Google confirms it notifies children if parents are monitoring their accounts

Ha! I still have 2 at home going to college online and a niece with her 2.5 year old living with me. No extra time yet!

I guess my decision to monitor them comes from me being such a wild child. My mother never found out I was selling Playboy magazines out of my school locker, or that I drank and smoked pot when I was out with my friends. Being such a bad kid, I knew what to look for.

Don't mistake knowing what they are up to with control. I never forced religion, politics, or a profession on my kids. They knew they were free to decide their own destiny. I understand why parents get frustrated and try to control their kids.

 

Sounds like you had a more interesting childhood than me! I was a very good boy. My headmaster told me after I left school that the one time he called me into his office, for putting some small graffiti in one of the toilets, he was relieved I was capable of it.

For me there's a world of difference between monitoring and spying. You've already said you were open with your kids about your monitoring. And I'd have no problem some with spying, like checking when a kid goes out into some new environment that they're safe. But ongoing secret monitoring has to be corrosive to the quality of the relationship in some way, even if only subtly. Interesting how we've both reacted against our childhood experiences: you want your kids to have better boundaries than you did, and if I had kids, I'd want them not to feel over-controlled like I did.

 

Yep the big Govt radical right wing needs the Govt to control our lives.

 

I don't see propaganda - even for marketing - as "just advertising."

I often write about "corporate fascist." That is when mega companies and mega corporations merge into one - for both wealth and political power by authoritarianism. This happened at levels unheard of in American history.

Big Tech are the richest international monopolies in the history of earth - and not just the market place and economically. They bought ALL newspapers, ALL television stations and control 99% of social media - using them pointedly as corporate propaganda and now so intensely engaging in censorship (which I call identical to fascist book burning since few people read physical books) as extreme as censoring and banning the President of the United States, a collective statement by Republicans in Congress, and increasingly allowing no Republican side of issues - 100% always in way profitable to those same plutocrats and mega international corporations - virtually all in business partnership with Chinese plutocrats and mega corporations.

We see fundamental civil rights attacked if not outright denied. Extreme threats and retaliations for exercising freedom of speech. Denial of bond of people who have no criminal record, a non-violent crime and turned themselves in. Summary placed in solitary confinement before found guilty of anything - which is torture. While in solitary confinement ordered to not try to communicate with anyone - blocking trying to even prepare a defense. Seizing the files and emails of defendants' lawyers.

To an unprecedented degree, totalitarian "executive officers" 50 governors and 20,000 mayors, under the excuse of covid-19 can unilaterally destroy and reward anyone - destroying working people and middle class merchant businesses - already permanently destroying 30% nationwide - all for massive profit to Amazon, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, big tech - and of course China. Mom and pop clothing stores ordered closed by dictatorial edict - no legislative action - forcing people to buy Chinese made clothing in WalMart - the most danger indoor locations in the country being the most crowded. Literally ordering all businesses on one side of the street, while the brother-in-law's and political contributor's businesses on the other side can be open - all on the orders - edicts, not legislation - on the whim of over 20,000 such totalitarian mayors and governors.

The manner of conducting the election was absurd and the stats have been declared so improbable as to be a trillion to one.

Not to overwork reference to the rise of Nazism, it is the same path. The marriage of mega international corporations of increasing massive size to increasingly authoritarian government - with a TOTAL take over of news and info sources - as has happened in the USA - banning and censoring opposing opinions.

Advertising is propaganda.

Yes, I understand no one reads this and no one - ever - on a forum changes their mind. They are all nearly submissive to the voices of the the propaganda outlets of the plutocrats they select. Yes, that applies to Republicans too - but Republicans are more independent - why they rejected nominating another Bush, while Hilary and Joe Biden were rammed down Democrats' throats.

 

Oh, that is good. I had never considered that before. The government having a play in getting Google started for mass surveillance.

Damn

 

I was open with my kids to the point of discussing anything on their mind including time they were angry with me. I never told them I monitored their internet.

The point is to reduce the need to control through trust. The more they know how to do on their own, the less interference is necessary. By the time someone offers them drugs, we already had several discussions about it. I also made sure they has access to activities that created a natural high, skateboarding, motorcycles, snowboarding, team sports, art, music, etc.

A friend of mind had 2 wild kids. They told mom and dad "Shut up!" and the daughter even punched her mom in the stomach. They had sleep overs with my kids and if they tried that crap with me, they would be scrubbing the floor and eating vegetables for dinner. They also had the option of being easy and we can go play laser tag or drive go carts. Even though I was strict, they couldn't wait to come over.

The same boundaries kids resist, also make them feel safe.

 

Sounds like a pretty decent balance. I can't say it makes me feel differently about Google's stance though: if they don't want to facilitate parents spying on their kids, I can't say I think they're wrong.

 

Fair enough. I would have to say that circumventing the parent and dealing directly with the minor is wrong. Keep in mind that google spys on you!

 

That's a whole other discussion! And a good point.