Hello Barbie: Why I'm saying No!

Part of the reason I do not support CCS and avoid CCS aligned materials especially CCS aligned websites is because of the data mining. So you can imagine my horror when I learned about "Hello Barbie".

Just like a real friend, Hello Barbie doll listens and adapts to the user's likes and dislikes. 

What does this mean? It sounds harmless enough. However it's not just harmless. Mattel is using Hello Barbie to datamine your children or anyone else using the doll. The conversations you have with the doll are recorded and stored on Mattel's servers. The TOS states:

We may also use, store, process, convert, transcribe, analyze or review Recordings (along with text and transcriptions derived from the Recordings) in order to provide, maintain, analyze and improve the functioning of the Services, to develop, test or improve speech recognition technology and artificial intelligence algorithms, or for other research and development and data analysis purposes. We do not use Recordings or their content, including any personal information that may be captured therein, to contact children or to advertise to them.

All of that basically means the recordings we collect will be used to help us with marketing and whatever else we feel we need to use it for we just won't use the doll, Hello Barbie, to directly market to your child. Meaning the doll will never say to your child or anyone else using the doll to buy this or that, but you better believe that Mattel is using the info for their gain and whatever else that falls under "other research".

So you might not buy one, but your neighbor might have so be aware of what your child is playing with even at Jane's house.  This Hello Barbie doll looks like a normal Barbie -- you might not even realize they are using a datamining toy.

I know many will say datamining is everywhere you can't avoid it. It's on the computers, google, facebook, smartphones, etc. While true this I believe is in a whole new realm and has pushed the envelope even more.

And for the record I don't have a beef with Barbie or any other fashion type doll in general. I don't care for the Bratz or Monster High dolls -- mainly because I don't care for the make-up and look of them -- but Barbie and other fashion dolls are fine with me. -- I just don't like this Hello Barbie!

People need to start fighting back on the datamining and say NO more!

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