Today we’re pleased to announce that M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, has taken a stake in SuperAwesome as part of a new round. We typically don’t announce investments but we feel this transaction represents an important milestone. We’re growing quickly and we’re profitable so why did we decide to bring M12… Read More
1. A major consumer platform gets fined for kids data privacy breach in Europe under GDPR-K In September, YouTube was fined $170m by the FTC for allowing kids personal data to be collected in a breach of the US COPPA law. Europe has a similar (but stricter) law called GDPR-K, which has the same protections but defines a child as up to the age of 16 in many countries (e.g. Germany, Ireland). There is currently an active investigation which has the potential to be magnitudinally more consequential than the COPPA decision. Getting ahead: historically, brands have taken a practical approach to privacy, often rolling out global operating standards ahead of legislation. You should be planning for 16 as the de facto age of digital consent for privacy/contextual. Read More
SuperAwesome is pretty unique: we are pioneering the kidtech sector with an array of products at different maturity stages, and our engineers work seamlessly across the full stack. The concept of “production readiness” is highly influenced by the product we make, and by the culture and the people involved in designing, developing and maintaining the code. Read More
We’ve recently unveiled our plans for Rukkaz: a video platform designed for family creators, responsible advertisers and kids. Rukkaz is built with privacy-by-design and safe community as first principles (we talked about our guiding principles in an earlier post). Read More
Containers are a critical part of SuperAwesome's infrastructure, allowing us to grow very rapidly without losing focus on our goals. Sometimes, some really simple changes can allow you to save you money, build simpler infrastructure, ensure a better developer experience, and reduce maintenance. Read More
By the time a child is 13, advertising platforms designed for adults will have captured over 72 million pieces of data on them, sharing that personal information with hundreds of other companies. Fundamentally, children are using an internet which was never designed for them. CEO Dylan Collins took to the stage at VivaTech earlier this year to talk about why the solution to this problem isn't coming from Silicon Valley... Read More
About six months ago we started work on Rukkaz, a video platform designed for the needs of kids and family content creators. We thought it was a good time to start talking about details. Patrick Frater in Variety was kind enough to spend some time with us and has an… Read More
In 2018, kids were 40% of all new internet users globally. Across the world, new laws for kids privacy, screen-time and online identity are being passed in reaction to this trend. This has significant impacts for the world's biggest technology companies. Read More
Last week Google announced an important revamp of its policies for Play Store apps that are used by children. With these changes, Google is addressing many of the concerns voiced in recent years by parents, regulators and advocates about the safety of apps that are marketed to kids. Read More
Last week Google announced an update to their policies for kids’ apps in the Google Play store, with significant impact on kids’ publishers: Apps whose primary audience is children must participate in the Designed for Families (DFF) program, and will only be allowed to use certified ad SDKs… Read More