The Register’s Drew Cullen tells us that a three-year-old managed to piggyback her mother’s credit card and buy some extra iPad apps (fortunately, only $50 Australian worth). This turns out not to be a unique example of a transaction remaining open long enough for a child to add to the bill. However, it can be prevented.
Curiously enough, I saw this at almost the same time as an article in Media Post News quoting a study by the Nielsen Norman Group that found that kids between 3 and 10 are often already skilled websurfers, but that they’re expertise with mouse and touchscreen isn’t necessarily matched by their awareness of the wonderful world of webvertising, and don’t necessarily realize the implications of what they’re clicking on.
Of course, there are implications there for a lot more than a credit card bill from iTunes…
David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
Mac Virus Administrator
Small Blue-Green World
