Enacted in 1998, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires firms to obtain parental consent before tracking the information and the online movement of children; however, the act applies to those children ages 12 and under. Teenagers are often oblivious to the consequences of sharing their fives online. Data reapers create huge libraries of digital profiles and sell these profiles to advertisers, who use it to detect trends and micro-target their ads back to teens. For example, a teen searching online for ways to lose weight could become enticed by an ad for dietary supplements, fed into his/her network by tracking cookies. As a preliminary step in gauging the magnitude of teen usage of social networking sites, an economist surveys 200 teen girls and 200 teen boys. Of teen girls, 166 use social networking sites; of teen boys, 156 use social networking sites.
In a report, use the sample information to:
1. Construct a contingency table that shows frequencies for the qualitative variables Gender (male or female) and Use of Social Networking Sites (Yes or No).
2. What is the probability that a teen uses social networking sites?
3. What is the probability that a teen girl uses a social networking site?
4. A bill before Congress would like to extend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to apply to 15-year-olds. In addition, the bill would also ban Internet companies from sending targeted advertising to children under 16 and give these children and their parents the ability to delete their digital footprint and profile with an “eraser button” (The Boston Globe, May 20, 2012). Given the probabilities that you calculated with respect to teen usage of social networking sites, do you think that this legislation is necessary? Explain.