Examining the readability of privacy policies for the most popular kids Web sites

As parents prepare for summer vacation, with their kids spending more free time on the Web, our thoughts turned to online privacy policies. Are kids well equipped to understand the policies of the sites they visit? We examine the top hundred most heavily-trafficked kids and teens English-language Web sites (as ranked by Alexa), analyzing their privacy policies for readability.

SiteAdvisor doesn’t review legal notices as part of its automated testing, but we are concerned these documents use language that’s too complex for children to understand (not to mention adults, in many cases). Anecdotally, we know that even young children often surf the Web alone. In fact, a Kaiser Foundation study found that 31% of minors aged 8-18 have a computer in the bedroom.

This is important for several reasons. Children don’t always ask their parents’ permission before registering for sites or installing programs. Indeed, we think it’s safe to assume that most kids don’t even read accompanying legal notices before "accepting" them. And for the few kids who do read them, we suspect they don't fully understand the contents.

License agreements and privacy policies often bury fine print users wouldn’t like and don’t intend to agree to. Some policies contain language purporting to allow a site to sell or rent a user’s e-mail address to third party advertisers. Others purport to let the site install unrelated adware along with the games or music the child seeks.

Reading At Grade Level
Readability.info is a Web site built by Dave Taylor, a computer scientist, technology consultant and entrepreneur. The site rates the readability of English language text uploaded to it using seven standard academic comprehension scales. The scales are different, but some common criteria include the number of syllables per word, the number of characters per word, and the average number of words per sentence.

We decided to focus on the Lix readability scale because its scores correspond to U.S. school grade reading levels. In other words, the scores reflect the grade level required to comprehend a text -- in our case, a Web site’s privacy policy. (Learn more about readability tests at this Wikipedia entry).

Has The Jury Reached A Verdict?
The sites with the most and least readable privacy policies are as follows. (The numbers refer to the Lix Score and the corresponding grade level:

Top 10 Most Readable

1. bbc.co.uk/cbbc – 38.6 - 6
2. yahooligans.yahoo.com – 39.4 - 6
3. geocities.yahoo.com – 40.1 - 6
4. pbskids.org – 40.8 - 6
5. onelook.com – 41.9 - 7
6. mugglenet.com – 44.2 - 8
7. tripod.lycos.co.uk – 44.6 - 8
8. starwars.com – 46.6 - 8
9. gamespot.com – 47.6 - 8
9. gamefaqs.com – 47.6 - 8
9. enchantedlearning.com – 47.6 – 8
10. fifaworldcup.yahoo.com – 47.9 - 8

Bottom 10 Least Readable

1. guildwars.com – 64.5 – 11+
2. nickjr.com – 60.9 – 11+
3. fifa.com – 60.4 – 11+
4. noggin.com – 60.1 – 11+
5. xbox.com – 59.4 – 11+
5. encarta.msn.com – 59.4 – 11+
5. microsoft.com/games – 59.4 – 11+
6. blizzard.com – 59.3 – 11+
6. battle.net – 59.3 – 11+
7. thinkquest.org – 58.7 – 11+
8. ubi.com – 57.7 – 11+
8. us.playstation.com – 57.7 – 11+
8. mtv.com/music – 57.7 – 11+
9. homestarrunner.com – 56.8 – 11
10. nick.com – 56.6 – 11

To put these results in context, consider the grade levels required to understand some well known texts:

A typical New York Times story – (Grade 5 -- 34.1)
A typical White House press release – (Below Grade 5 – 28.3)

View the scores of all privacy policies here. All policies were tested on June 11, 2006.

(A note on our methods: We began with Alexa’s top "Kids and Teens" sites which is based on the DMOZ open directory project. We took the top 100 English language sites, removed duplicate second-level domains as well as sites that seemed, to us, to be targeted at adults (e.g. honda.com, faa.gov). We were left with 50 sites, which we then tested and ranked.

The Simple
The ten sites with the lowest Lix scores all have legal notices that anyone who reads at a sixth grade level can understand.

Case in point: Yahooligans.com. This Yahoo-operated site for kids has a straightforward privacy policy that uses easy-to-understand prose. Notice Yahoo’s simple declarative sentences.

"...this Children's Privacy Policy provides further information and privacy protections for our users who are under the age of 13."
Its "Information Sharing and Disclosure" section succinctly states:

"Yahoo! will not contact children under 13 about special offers or for marketing purposes without parental consent."
Yahooligans provides an educational article for parents about how to interpret privacy policies. A noteworthy quote:

"Make sure your children know to ask for your permission before they give out ANY personal information about themselves to any web site or in response to any email message."
Pbskids.org also features a privacy policy written at a sixth-grade reading level. Like most privacy policies, it informs the reader that visiting pbskids.org will result in the creation of "cookies" in the Web browser. It commendably proceeds to define what a "cookie" is, for those who don’t already know.

"What's a cookie? A cookie is information a Web site puts on your computer's hard drive so that the site can remember your preferences or which pages you visited on that site."
The Complex
The ten sites with the highest Lix scores all have intricate legal notices that require a reading comprehension level at or above grade eleven. We focus on two sites owned by Viacom.

The privacy policy for the Web site of cable channel Nick Jr. is nearly 3500 words long and packs a few potentially troubling tidbits. For one:

"From time to time, we (independent third-party shop.nickjr.com) may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and manage certain functions (e.g., fulfilling contests and sweepstakes conducted on the Shop to which we are sponsors)."
Nickjr.com is devoted to the kindergarten set with games and activities built around TV shows like Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer. Not the kind of audience that’s up to comprehending "transfer, disclose or share...with third parties."

Fellow Nickelodeon channel Noggin proudly describes itself to be "like preschool on TV." However, you’ll need to read above an eleventh grade level to understand their Web site’s privacy policy. Try asking a child to wrap his head around this sentence:

"Noggin.com currently does not disclose to third parties personally identifiable information that users provide except, from time to time however, we may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and deliver certain online activities (e.g. conducting contests and sweepstakes)."
Under a section called "For Parents," Noggin does encourage parents to talk to their kids about personal information and the Web:

"We urge preschoolers to check with their parent or guardian before entering any information on any website and we urge parents and guardians to discuss with their preschoolers restrictions regarding the online release of personal information to anyone they don't know."
As for the kids who surf Noggin.com alone, we suspect that nothing will stop them as they search for a good Connie the Cow game or Pinky Dinky Doo sing along.

Good Advice?
Microsoft advises parents to read it "all."

"The key to helping prevent the installation of spyware is to download programs only from sources you trust and to read all security warnings, license or user agreements, and privacy statements associated with any software you download or install on your computer."
The National Cyber Security Alliance goes further with this recommendation:

"If you don't see a privacy policy – or if you can't understand it – consider doing business elsewhere."
Generally speaking, we agree that users should know what they’re getting into when they click "I agree." But we’re not the first to look at how hard it is to take this advice given the complexity of legal notices. Wayne Porter from Facetime examines the Tinkopal toolbar end user license agreement (EULA) using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test. Spyware researcher (and SiteAdvisor advisor) Ben Edelman dissected an old Gator EULA.

In fact, Ben has often focused on kids Web safety. His dollidol.com investigation revealed an instance of a Zango adware installation process that (among other things) presented a "license agreement in an oddly-shaped window that discouraged careful review." We recently published "Are Smileys Safe?" which exposes the use of "free smiley" offers as a way to entice kids to install adware.

Keep It Simple
SiteAdvisor doesn’t rate a site unfavorably if its legal notices are too complex for its target audience. In fact, all of the sites in Alexa’s Top 100 English-Language Kids and Teens Web sites are rated green (safe-to-use) by SiteAdvisor.

Nonetheless, we do think these sites ought to revisit their privacy policies. Perhaps this article will inspire the Web’s most popular Kids and Teens sites to consider children’s reading abilities when writing their legal notices. We recognize that Internet law is complex and legalese is often necessary. SiteAdvisor’s own 2,409 word Terms Of Service has a Lix score above the 11th grade level, though our service is not targeted toward children. Our "Really Big Picture" Terms Of Service overview has a Lix score at the 9th grade level. We point to sites like Yahooligans and PBSKids that have managed to draft their notices to be more readily understandable to their intended users. We support that effort.

Not all parents and guardians can supervise their childrens’ every click. One way to help kids stay safe from spam, spyware and scams on the Web is to install our software and tell the kids "green means go" and "red means run." And that advice has a very good readability score.