"Safeguarding Children in the Digital Marketplace"

 Kathryn Montgomery, PhD

 

In 1996, as the Internet was swiftly making its way into the mainstream of American life, the Center for Media Education released the first report documenting emerging marketing and data collection practices targeted at children on the World Wide Web. That report, Web of Deception, marked the beginning of a four-year research, public education, and policy advocacy campaign to establish safeguards for children in the digital media marketplace. These efforts led directly to passage of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and helped influence subsequent advocacy group efforts at the Federal Communications Commission to regulate children’s advertising in digital television. I will discuss some of the important lessons from CME’s experience that could be helpful to other consumer and public interest organizations seeking to influence public policy and corporate behavior in the digital era.  

I will also identify several major trends that are shaping the new children’s media marketplace. The interactive media are ushering in an entirely new set of relationships, breaking down the traditional barriers between “content and commerce,” and creating unprecedented intimacies between children and marketers. These trends raise serious questions that will need to be addressed by researchers, policy makers, health professionals, and parents.

Kathryn Montgomery, PhD (kcm@american.edu) is a professor at the School of Communications at American University.  She is the former President of the Center for Media Education, where her research, publications, and testimony helped frame the national public policy debate on a range of critical media issues.