Mattel Retreats as Privacy Complaints Rise About Software

WASHINGTON —  In response to public complaints about privacy, Mattel Interactive has announced that starting Monday the company will provide a tool that removes software that was surreptitiously placed on customers’ computers and is designed to transmit and receive information to Mattel.

The software, known as Brodcast, can be found in many of Mattel Interactive’s popular children’s educational software, including the “Reader Rabbit” series and games featuring the cartoon characters Arthur and Little Bear.

Several published reports and consumer complaints prompted El Segundo-based Mattel Inc. to allow users to uninstall the software, but a Mattel Interactive spokeswoman said the company decided to stop using the software in April, when the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act went into effect. That law prohibits Web sites and online services from collecting personal information from children younger than 13.

Mattel maintains that its software doesn’t fall under the act because the company is not a Web site or online service and the information transmitted isn’t personal. Instead, it sends a product identification number and some technical information and downloads advertising products targeted toward the user.

Still, the company decided to stop.

“Due to public concern around the privacy issue, and as part of our ongoing effort to meet consumer interests, we made a decision to revise the existing program last year and then later eliminated it altogether,” Mattel Interactive said in a statement.

Last year’s revision consisted of modifying the product to make sure that the user knew it was being installed and offered an option not to install it at all. In April, Mattel’s servers stopped communicating with Brodcast.

The name, Brodcast, refers to Broderbund, a software company bought by Learning Co. Broderbund designed the original software as a marketing technique. But Mattel then bought Learning Co. in May 1999, making both it and Broderbund brand names under the Mattel Interactive umbrella. Two months ago, just as the company decided to shut down Brodcast, Mattel Interactive was put up for sale.

Given the company’s transformations, spokeswoman Susan Salminen said, Brodcast was rarely used.

“I don’t think that anything was done with it,” she said. “It wasn’t utilized very much because of our company situation.”

Mattel will have a Windows 98 uninstall program for Brodcast available by the close of business Monday, Salminen said. Tools to eliminate the program on other platforms will be posted later in the week.