December 20th, 2023
The Drum recently published an article featuring Garrett Johnson, Assistant Professor of Marketing discussing the proposed changes by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) aimed at safeguarding children’s privacy online.
Some changes to the Childen’s online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) are requiring explicit consent from parents or guardians to disclose children’s data to third parties and requiring some online services to switch off targeted advertising to children. While there are advocates of these changes, others are skeptical of the impact on the ecosystem.
“Verifiable consent from a parent online usually means, like, using a credit card. So … platforms typically don’t get consent. Instead, they just turn off personalized advertising [to kids] – that’s what YouTube did [as part of an FTC settlement in 2019],” Johnson adds.
This switch will likely limit the amount of kids-focused content online, ultimately impacting overall ad revenue.
