COPPA

Efforts to police children’s data online are running up against the limits of decades-old privacy laws, such as COPPA.

Keeping American kids safe in what FTC Commissioner Mark Meador calls “an increasingly complex and fast-paced technological environment” is a top priority for the agency.

Into every generation, a universally hated children’s television character is born. This, of course, poses a unique problem in a world of smart TV operating systems and content recommendation engines.

Contextual intelligence platform Precise TV is hoping to make it easier for kid-focused brands to reach their target audiences without compromising on privacy.

In today’s newsletter: The DOJ sues TikTok alleging COPPA violations; Disney wraps a competitive upfronts season as it faces stiller competition for streaming ad budgets; and more than $107 million was spent on ads for AI products in the first half of this year.

Driver Studios, which has a COPPA-compliant ads business, is expanding its targeting to include more adults via a new partnership with privacy startup Qonsent.

To help bridge the disconnect between SMBs and media platforms, Media Disco recently launched its self-serve ad-buying platform.

SuperAwesome CEO Kate O’Loughlin discusses how contextual targeting makes it less risky for brands to market to kids and teens, and whether advertiser priorities for reaching young consumers are shifting after years of metaverse hype.

New requirements with respect to the processing of children’s data are occurring at the U.S. state level and seemingly flying below the radar. Here’s how these changes could impact targeted advertising in the United States.

Future Today, a streaming platform with a portfolio that includes content for kids, wants to rebrand itself to marketers and agencies as a “family-friendly” programmer that also has content designed for viewers over 13 years old.

Lawmakers are busy playing politics, and it’s getting in the way of creating safety guardrails for children’s privacy online.

Contextual targeting today is way more advanced than what was available a decade ago. So, what could the FTC’s COPPA Rule proposal mean for contextual advertising to kids?

We’ve spent enough time and spilled more than enough ink this year talking and writing about Big Tech privacy fines, enforcement actions and the unutterably slow phaseout of third-party cookies in Chrome. So rather than rounding up the obvious online privacy trends of 2023, let’s dive into the weeds.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. AI? More Like “Ehh, I Don’t Know About That” Ad platforms are plowing ahead with AI-based software that is not ready to fill roles previously served by human expertise.  That means machine-learning-controlled ad products (Google’s Performance Max and Meta Advantage+ shopping campaigns are the […]

Personalized ads aren’t supposed to run on YouTube’s kid-focused content. But they’re showing up anyway. We bring on Adalytics researcher Krzysztof Franaszek to discuss his growing body of research into YouTube’s murky ad practices.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Leave Those Kids Alone Adalytics is taking a second swing at Google. On Thursday, it released its second report about YouTube this summer, this one alleging that the tech giant is targeting ads to content made for kids. Adalytics claims that the installation […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Rise (And Fall) Of The Machines CNET made waves in January when it started publishing articles that were completely generated by AI.  But the publisher is already rethinking how it’s using AI to write content after some early missteps, The Verge reports. Half […]

There’s been talk about raising the age of consent from 13 to 16 under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Dona Fraser, SVP of privacy initiatives at BBB National Programs, weighs in.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is no Zuck. The social media app activated a fan army after congressional hearings last week. Plus: State laws are emerging to protect kids from social media, which could squeeze the ad ecosystem.

In 2022, top players in digital advertising finally started taking gaming seriously, and the groundwork was laid for programmatic in-game advertising to grow thanks to a long overdue update to the IAB’s and MRC’s in-game ad standards. The scene is also set for in-game advertising to expand into console gaming, and we might even see the debut of the first sell-side platform dedicated to gaming.

CTV publisher Future Today banks on co-viewing to prove the value of household-level targeting against ad impressions served within its children’s streaming app, HappyKids. Future Today can’t track or store personal identifiable information for advertising on children’s content, but it can home in on co-viewing households to drive better business outcomes.

TV advertising is complicated enough without also having to worry about child-focused privacy regulations. But buyers and sellers need to consider the nuances when it comes to reaching and engaging children, including content relevancy and ad messaging strategies that differ depending on age.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Disconnecticut Connecticut has become the fifth state to pass a data privacy law. The Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA), effective July 2023, follows in the footsteps of California, Colorado, Virginia and Utah in setting statewide safety rails around consumer data collection. Like its predecessors, […]

Data privacy is a hot topic, but children’s privacy is often kept on the backburner. Compliance with child data protection laws is hard to get right because it involves determining the exact age of your audience – and playing by different rules accordingly. Staying on the right side of COPPA isn’t easy.

The internet needs child-safety guardrails, but lawmakers are hawking bills that could distract from the danger of widespread data collection and advertising targeted at children. The EARN IT Act is one of them. It purports to eliminate child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online, but privacy advocates say it’s unlikely to do so because its real function is just to hobble Big Tech.

OpenX CEO John Gentry on why the company isn’t going public in 2022, its recent COPPA settlement with the FTC and the ongoing challenge of ensuring quality supply in an open exchange.

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Common Sense Networks, the for-profit arm of news media watchdog group Common Sense Media, launched its free ad-supported streaming service Sensical for children less than a month ago, touting higher standards around child safety and learning compared to algorithm-driven platforms, […]

The kids are online, but their data is not all right. The majority of school utility apps used by kids and parents are pervasively sharing student data with third parties through advertising and analytics software development kits (SDKs), including those provided for free by Google and Facebook. On average, school apps have more than 10 […]

There’s not enough awareness that compliance can’t be a cut-and-paste job when it comes to kids. Just because you’re compliant with Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), doesn’t mean you’re compliant with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), or the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Plus, US states are coming out with their own […]

Content creators on YouTube are freaking out. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received more than 175,000 comments in response to a call for feedback on potential changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), an abundance of which came from YouTube creators worried that their ad-supported livelihoods are about to go up in smoke. […]