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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Out With The Old-In With The New

I enjoy Christmas at my relatives because I don't have the stress of making room in my small but modest house. Although the toys are enough to drive me bonkers. I would be so much happier if my relatives would each just do one nice gift vs. many gifts. Mainly because we have a small house and the kids are left with twice a year deciding what MUST go and what CAN stay!

You see each child has a toy (bin) shelf in their room. The only toys they are allowed to have are the ones that can "fit" in their bins.

I insist that the toys be grouped by like things. So they just can't have a mess of stuff. Now there might be a few things that are naturally too big for these bins and that is okay. I do make allowances for some things like that, but even then there is a limit.

This is the reason we don't allow them to open things while at our relatives' houses. You see in order to get the item the kids have to make room for it in their room's by getting rid of OTHER stuff. If they don't want to get rid of anything then they can't get anything "new". 

My son as gotten rid of one 13 gallon garbage bag of stuff and has only "earn" 1 new toy.  My daughter has gotten rid of half of 13 gallon garbage bag of stuff and has only "earn" 1 toy. They have a TONS more toys and will have to get rid of a lot more things to make room.  I have a feeling that when they are done they both would have gotten rid of 3-4 garbage bag EACH!!

We do a similar thing in the summer. In the summer they will get rid 1-2 garbage bags EACH. The main difference between Christmas and summer in the summer time there is less stuff and it's POST birthdays. So kid's do have a bit of an overflow of toys for a few months.

What's sad about the whole process is the only time my kids get new toys is on their birthdays and at Christmas.  So often the stuff they got at their birthdays are gone by Christmas and the stuff they got at Christmas are gone by the summer.

In other words the toys here will only stay for 6 months!! This is because often the kids rather keep the newer stuff then the older stuff. This is really the reason we only get them 1 toy each (and often wish other would do the same), because in 6 months we know it's going o be gone because it broke or because the kids got rid of it to make room for their new stuff.

So what do you do? Do you make your kids get rid of their old stuff regularly?