google collected part of kids' social security numbers for art contest

from business insider: Google asked parents to enter the last four digits of their children's Social Security Numbers, as well as their city of birth and age, as a condition to enter a Google-sponsored art contest. As movie director Bob Bowdon points out on the Huffington Post, Google could easily have guessed the remainder of the numbers from the other information they collected. This data could be extremely valuable to marketers. Some of the people who tipped Bowdon off about the story sent an email to the FTC on February 17 wondering if it was even legal to solicit kids' Social Security Numbers. The next day, Google updated its consent form, removing the space for the SSNs. There's no evidence that Google actually did anything with the information, but it's certainly a weird set of data to collect for a kids' contest. Google has come under fire several times for having a seemingly cavalier attitude toward privacy, and this doesn't help matters.