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FTC to Crack Down on Mobile Marketers Targeting Kids

According to a recent report from VentureBeat.com, the FTC has begun an aggressive campaign of going after tech companies that are violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).  They updated the COPPA last year with stricter guidelins on how companies could market to kids, and the updates came with a ‘grace period’ so advertisers could adapt.  The updates affect online advertisers, gaming companies and other companies whose audience is likely to be younger in age.

Mark Eichorn, the FTC Assistant Director of Privacy and Identify Protection, told VentureBeat, “The FTC remains committed to protecting children’s privacy online, even as mobile technology continues to evolve quickly – that’s what the revisions to the COPPA rule were about.”  He went on to say, “In the mobile space, behavioral advertising to children is an area where we intend to use the enforcement tools at our disposal to ensure children’s privacy is protected.”

The FTC is taking this very seriously, and can fine ad marketers and other firms who are selling information, or violating the COPPA guidelines in any other way up to $16,000 per infraction.  That $16,000 for every mobile app download or every time they sell the private information of a child.  This can quickly add up to huge fines for any company violating the COPPA rules.

There was no comment on any specific companies that the FTC is currently investigating, though they did comment that the majority of marketers in the industry are operating properly.  It is the small minority who are giving that mobile industry a bad name that will be targeted in any current or future investigations.

You can see the VentureBeat article on this HERE, and you can view all of the FTC’s updates to COPPA HERE.

Pesach Lattin
Pesach Lattinhttp://www.adotat.com
Pesach "Pace" Lattin is one of the top experts in interactive advertising, affiliate marketing. Pesach Lattin is known for his dedication to ethics in marketing, and focus on compliance and fraud in the industry, and has written numerous articles for publications from MediaPost, ClickZ, ADOTAS and his own blogs.

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