United States Senators, Mr. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut and Mr. Edward Markey from Massachusetts, introduced a new bill referred to as the Kids Internet Design and Safety Act (the “KIDS Act”). One of the Senator’s introducing the KIDS Act, Mr. Edward Markey, was the co-author of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). The KIDS Act seeks to include noteworthy advertising rules and create new protections for children online, specifically for online users under the age of 16. The proposed advertising rules within the KIDS Act are to ban websites from: (1) exposing young online users to advertisements “with embedded interactive elements”; (2) recommending any content involving alcohol, nicotine, or tobacco to young online users; and (3) recommending content that includes influencer marketing, like unboxing videos, or host-selling to young online users. Additionally, the KIDS Act seeks to prohibit certain online features to protect children, like prohibiting...

Washington D.C.—April 4, 2019—Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass) recently announced that he is planning to introduce the Kids Internet Design and Safety Act (KIDS). This act is designed to combat “the ‘commercialization’ of children’s online lives” by asking these online platforms to “tweak their algorithms to ensure harmful content does not end up in front of children.” Furthermore, the act would “limit the amount and types of advertisements online platforms are allowed to target toward children and prohibit content that blurs the lines between content and advertisement.”  Senator Markey believes that some websites and apps are built in ways that harm children. The KIDS act would “address ‘manipulative design’ on platforms such as YouTube and Instagram that seek to keep children online longer, such as YouTube’s auto-play and push notification from children’s gaming apps.” Under this legislation, online platforms that do not follow the bill’s guidelines would be subject to fines and s...