The CARU Conference was held this year in Marina del Rey, California (just 15 minutes from LAX Airport) at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. We kicked the day off with a movie screening of Screenagers, the award-winning film that explores family life and the struggles over social media, video games and academics. The movie shares challenges of parenting in a digital world and solutions for how to help kids safely navigate the issues.
Later in the day, the film’s star and director, Delaney Ruston shared her own
messy, personal experiences. While it’s true that too much screen time can have
adverse effects on brain development, it’s also true that prosocial games and
media can encourage kids’ good behavior as well. Dr. Ruston hopes that her film
will spark a movement—that this film will get families talking about how they
can aspire to lead more balanced lives. She thinks industry is up to the
task and challenged them to create more cool and prosocial content.
Our
first keynote speaker was the Cholla Khoury from the office of the New Mexico
Attorney General, Hector Balderas. She discussed their recent lawsuit against
several tech companies for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection
Act (COPPA). The lawsuit focused on both complying with the law (obtaining
consent before collection) as well as the need to be transparent. “The industry
needs more transparency and more of the industry trying to do the right thing!
Like this conference!” To which of course, we must say that we agree.
The
remainder of the morning focused on privacy. The first panel focusing on privacy worldwide featured Cynthia Kao (Sony), Alan Friel (BakerHostetler), Frances
Henderson (EU Privacy Shield, BBB) and Lindsey Tonsager (Covington &
Burling). With COPPA, GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) set to
go into effect in 2020 and with federal privacy legislation on the horizon,
it’s clear that the privacy industry is at a crossroads. Panelists discussed
how to harmonize practices across the board. There were discussions as to how
COPPA will evolve and even discussion of revisiting new methods for obtaining
verifiable parental consent. Many seemed to agree that the use of text
messaging (if done the right way) could be another method to obtain consent.
Though it has not yet been explicitly approved, the room seemed to agree that it
should be explored.
Next,
privacy was discussed as it pertains to the mobile context as well as to the ‘Internet of Things.’
Allison Fitzpatrick (Davis & Gilbert), Audra Chapleski (Space Foundation)
and Marco Carvalho ( Immersive Play) explored how emerging innovation in areas
like augmented reality, connected toys and voice-powered assistants are
impacting the children’s media landscape. We especially loved meeting Snow
Shine, an interactive smart toy that boasts no data collection, internet, WiFi
or Bluetooth.
Next, Phyllis Marcus (Hunton Andrews Kurth), Angela Tiffin (CARU), Pete
Johnson (Apollo Matrix) and Josh Wöhle (SuperAwesome) took a closer look at
privacy practices in the mobile space including how to inform consumers of
privacy practices, obtain parental permission and how to deal with tracking. There was agreement among panelists that not all ad-service providers
are created equal and that if your service is “directed to children,” you
should find services that specialize in advertising that is appropriate for
kids (like SuperAwesome). There was consensus that industry-wide solutions for
parental consent would make it MUCH easier for parents to be involved. If you
could use the same login, lowering the barrier for use would leave parents much
less frustrated so kids could access more good content.
Angela
Tiffin discussed the FTC’s recent record $5.7 Million dollar settlement with
TikTok. The action was the result of a referral stemming from a CARU inquiry. Never
underestimate the important role that CARU (and other self-regulatory groups)
play in the process. CARU referred the Musical.ly case after the company
declined to comply with CARU’s recommendations. CARU found that Musical.ly was
a “mixed audience” service that targeted kids under COPPA. CARU therefore held
that Musical.ly wasn’t permitted to completely block children. The lesson to be
learned here is that when you know your mixed-audience app is geared to teens,
plan two user experiences so you avoid collecting children’s personal
information. Check out our blog post about the TikTok
FTC settlement to learn more.
CARU
also recommends keeping an eye on what is going on on your site or online service—even
if you don’t intend to be directed to kids, you need to be prepared if kids end
up there. Have a solution in place, the FTC’s commissioners have made clear
that asking forgiveness later won’t cut it.
Angela Tiffin also
announced CARU's latest case, which was released the morning of the conference. In its My Talking Tom case inquiry, CARU held that advertising disclosures must
be clear and conspicuous with no misleading language—and that goes double in
mobile. Check out our press release about the My
Talking Tom App case for more information.
Krissa
Watry, founder of Dynepic (and former rocket scientist—seriously) shared her
company’s tips for building privacy-safe apps and smart toys. She shared that
the cost to build a mobile app for children is 10 times as high as what it
costs to build something for adults because there are so many laws to comply
with. She developed PlayPortal, a tool for developers that gives all the
building blocks to make kids’ privacy compliance easier.
After
a fantastic lunch, we had our second keynote address, which was a fireside chat
with Fares Alraie (Chief Information Security Officer at Mattel) with moderator,
Sheila Millar (Keller and Heckman). Alraie shared his perspective on embracing
security and privacy as core corporate values. He said that the biggest gap is
how the law is written and how we implement it. There needs to be a method and
a process where you create gates.
Next,
we welcomed back to the stage, Madeline di Nonno, CEO of the Geena Davis
Institute. Madeline shared some disappointing numbers about the current state
of the representation of gender and race in media. However, she shared their new
tool called the Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient (GDIQ), groundbreaking software that
can automatically identify gender and race in media. Her organization is hopeful that this tool will help combat these issues. The GDIQ is used to
identify screen/speaking time so we can remove unconscious bias from media today. She also shared the Institute’s
research about the impact female media presence has in the STEM fields—spoiler alert,
the effects are huge and the representation isn’t great. There aren’t enough
women in STEM in the real world and media isn’t even keeping up with those
dismal numbers.
Kevin Clark, Director of the Center for Digital Media Innovation and Diversity
at George Mason University gave a presentation about the emerging demographic
shifts and how they impact media consumption and viewing. He shared that
certain categories like fast food, candy/gum and diet soda are more likely to
target Black and Hispanic consumers, while categories like nuts, fruit and water
are less likely. He also shared that media portrayal of gender and race lowers self-esteem
of Black boys and girls as well as in White girls; however, media portrayal
increased self-esteem for White boys. He revealed several other instances of
underrepresentation and negative associations that prove to be troubling and
challenged the industry to do better.
At
the end of the day Daniel M. Goldberg (Frankfurt Kurnit) and Kate O’Loughlin (SuperAwesome) presented to a full room—a true testament to industry’s interest in learning valuable insights into how COPPA is playing out in the ad ecosystem.
Speakers gave a breakdown of what happened in the Oath action and what lessons we have learned. Panelists stated that after this action it’s clear that everyone in the entire
ad tech ecosystem must comply with COPPA. Companies must be diligent in the supply chain, and if you set policies, you must comply. The panel also made clear that actual knowledge extends across departments, COPPA
flags (as is) are insufficient and that companies may pay a higher penalty for
willful misconduct. FTC Commissioners seem to echo this as well after comments on Musical.ly/TikTok.
The
conference was a smashing success! We had an amazing turnout and that’s
in large part to all the hard work of our wonderful speakers. Thank you for sharing such
relevant and important content. We’d also like to thank all our sponsors for
making the 2019 CARU Conference such a wonderful and enjoyable event! We couldn’t have done it
without you: Venable, BakerHostetler, SuperAwesome, Covington & Burling,
Davis & Gilbert, Frankfurt Kurnit and Keller and Heckman.
We
look forward to seeing you again in 2020 in Los Angeles. We will be
announcing the date in the next month or so so stay tuned! To stay up to date on all of CARU's happenings, subscribe to our blog (at the top of the page) or follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
