By: Jennifer Pepin
Targeted advertisements have raised major concerns for consumers who desire their information and data remain private. Companies like Facebook and Google have collected a lot of information over the years about individual consumers and their browsing/buying habits. Using this information, advertisers can narrowly target audiences to market to. These targets can be very specific and how users are targeted is not always clear–even to advertisers.
For many, targeted advertisements are bothersome, but for others, they can cause real harm to users’ mental health. Targeted ads can become an unwelcomed reminder to those who have experienced trauma or are personally struggling. Apple’s recent software update, which provided App Tracking Transparency, has made users increasingly aware of the issue of platforms using individuals’ data to track internet activity. In the past year, data breaches have plagued major companies, like T-Mobile, Microsoft Exchange and Twitch Interactive Inc, adding to consumers’ fears that their information is at risk of being stolen. As more information about the lack of consumers’ data privacy is being revealed, a variety of proposals have been made to effectuate change.
A few of these proposals are geared at protecting children online, especially after the Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified stating “Facebook products harm children.” Haugen explained how in Facebook’s pursuit of profits it created a platform that has harmful effects on the mental health of children. Haugen further described how Facebook and Instagram target children in order to “establish habits before they have good self-regulation.” Haugen encouraged banning targeted advertisements to children in an effort to protect them from the harmful effects of negative influences on mental health that Facebook creates. Additionally, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, have been accused of negatively affecting children.
Social media sites have enjoyed legal immunity while personal information of children has been collected and used to result in detrimental psychological effects. Recently, consumers have begun to demand that the technology industry be policed to protect children online. In response, Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, proposed amending the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). COPPA was enacted twenty years ago in 1998 to protect the privacy of children under thirteen by requiring parental consent. Cassidy and Markey want to expand the COPPA to ban targeted advertising to minors and require a deletion feature to allow minors to delete personal information that has already been collected. COPPA currently bans platforms from collecting personal data of children under thirteen without parental consent, but the amendment would increase that age to fifteen. The argument for this proposal is that tech companies know too much private information about children, and we know too little about what these companies are doing with children’s personal data. Therefore, steps need to be taken to implement safeguards to protect children’s digital footprint.
If passed, the amendment would meaningfully expand online protections for children and possibly eliminate targeted advertising. The proposed total ban on targeted advertising directed at minors would significantly shift platforms’ obligations to protect children. Platforms would have to completely stop targeted advertising across the board or implement new strategies to ensure that children are not victims to targeted advertisements based on their personal data. COPPA originated to allow parents to control the personal data of their children and this amendment would reinforce the original purposes by raising the age to fifteen. With the increase of children using the internet and companies turning a blind eye to their negative effects, there is a greater need for the protection of children’s data.
Targeted advertising is a major reason for Facebook’s profitability and restricting the company’s advertising strategies could be overly burdensome. Although banning platforms from targeting children would reduce the “approximately $40 billion a year profit” that Facebook is making today, it is still going to be a profitable company, just not as lucrative. The protection of children online is seemingly a fair compromise to placing a restriction on a powerful industry. The COPPA amendment may open the door for future demands to eliminate targeted advertising, but we haven’t arrived there yet. There may need to be greater proof of the negative effects targeted advertising has on adult users in order to altogether eliminate targeted advertising.
Student Bio: Jennifer Pepin is currently a second-year law student at Suffolk University Law School and a staff member on the Journal of High Technology Law. Prior to law school, Jennifer received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business from the University of Southern Maine.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are the views of the author alone and do not represent the views of JHTL or Suffolk University Law School.
