1998: A Concern for Children’s Privacy Was Born From the moment home computers had the capacity to connect to the Internet, children had the ability to use these technologies to access online websites and services. In the 1990s, concerns about children’s privacy and safety online arose amid fears of marketing practices around selling children’s personal information and exposing children’s information to predators. The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), founded in 1974, has always been on the forefront of safeguarding children’s privacy. CARU is the self-regulatory arm of the children’s advertising industry, tasked with promoting truth in children’s advertising by reviewing and evaluating child-directed ads in all media to ensure they are truthful, accurate and appropriate. CARU also monitors online privacy practices as they affect children. Before there was any legislation on the matter, CARU monitored a burgeoning Internet and observed how children’s privacy and sa...

This week, Dona Fraser, Director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), was interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's radio show, Sunday Extra, to discuss the relationship between paid advertising and child influencers. Fraser discussed how the lack of guidelines on the Internet is allowing companies to take advantage of the vulnerability of children through these child influencers. Many of these influencers, who broadcast to younger audiences, are given products to use in their videos and “it’s very difficult, even for adults, to discern what is an advertisement versus what is actually programming. When you have a child that’s simply sitting in front of a camera unboxing a game or a toy, it’s difficult for a child... to understand that maybe this child [influencer] was given the product by a company and is being ask to do this spot,” Fraser says. Fraser spoke about how CARU is asking for some sort of disclosure to let viewers know that what they are watc...

Last week, Cheddar interviewed Dona Fraser, Director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), on the rise of kid influencers, or children influencers. The discussion focused on the explosion of child content creators and the lack of guidance that technology companies and platforms face in this area. While the rules for traditional advertising to children are clear, “technology has moved far past the law. The law is trying to catch up to it. . . There are very [few] rules, [and] very little guidance,” Fraser says. Self-regulation can be effective, however, if the platforms and kid influencers contribute to the conversation for the development of guidelines. “I think [the tech companies] can self-regulate, we just need to have all—the entire ecosystem needs to come to the table on this one. You’ve got to have the platforms, [] the companies who are creating the content, [and] the kid influencers, because I don’t think every entity understands what the touchpoints are o...

CARU’s Director, Dona Fraser was quoted this morning in a Bloomberg News article discussing Kid Influencers, or child influencers, who are blurring the lines of editorial and advertising for children audiences. Influencers promote sponsored content, but that content is often difficult to distinguish as advertising, especially for impressionable children. Dona Fraser, director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), told  Bloomberg News that “[t]he uptick in sponsored content and child influencers is very overwhelming.” The topic is in the news due to a surge in child influencing on Google-owned YouTube, which created a children’s platform (YouTube Kids) in 2015 meant to keep out sponsored content.   Despite this initiative, sponsored content posted by kid influencers remains a recurring theme on the platform. Click here to read the full article, featuring other quotes from CARU about kid influencers by Mark Bergen on Bloomberg News .

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 s...

Today, February 27, 2019, the FTC issued the largest civil penalty ever obtained on a children’s privacy case. Musical.ly (now called TikTok) has agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC’s) complaint that the company illegally collected personal information from children. Musical.ly also agreed to comply with Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) going forward and to take down all videos made by children under the age of 13. Musical.ly’s platform allowed users to create and post short videos lip-syncing to music, as well as communicate with other users in the social network. All users were required to provide a first and last name, email address, phone number, profile picture, and biography to register for the app. The company had knowledge that a significant portion of its users were under 13 years old. The FTC learned of the issues when CARU referred the matter to the FTC last spring. In its complaint, the FTC claimed that th...

Does Diversity Matter? By, Dr. Kevin Clark Diversity is sometimes discussed as an after-thought, but as new innovations emerge it is clear that it needs to be more top of mind. In 2016, US Census data showed that babies of color were in the majority. It is estimated that by 2020, the majority of youth 18 years and younger will be of color; with the rest of the population becoming majority ‘minority’ by 2040. The impact of this demographic shift will be particularly felt in media and advertising.   Children of color are typically exposed to media the most; about 13 hours per day, as compared to 8.5 hours for White children. Exposure to television is about 5.5 hours per day for children of color, but only 3.5 hours for White children. This is significant because research has shown that one-third of African American youth report being exposed often to negative content regarding their race and one-fourth reported being exposed often to content that is negat...