Toni Dimaano Tech 10.20.2022 05:Oct AM EDT

FTC Reins in on 'Stealth' Advertising

The Fair Trade Commission is regulating content that targets kids in accordance with its rules about commercial surveillance.

Influencers and advertisers face crackdown due to the growing difficulty in distinguishing marketing and regular content on social networking sites, Gizmodo reports.

FTC Is Geared Towards Protecting Children

With the lines between advertising and content creation getting blurrier by the day, FTC is making considerable efforts to detect "stealth" advertising.

In a virtual event, the FTC has announced its agenda to recognize and understand the current advertising landscape and its potential harms and impacts on children, Lexology writes.

Here, the agency says that they have conducted an assessment of the current legalities in place that highlights the protection of children through regulatory educational and technological tools.

According to FTC Chairperson Lina Khan, children are exposed to serious issues when browsing the internet from deceptive practices that may have significant long-term effects.

The rise of influencer culture has pushed this type of advertising to take over social media, games, and other applications.

These ads often pressure users to make in-app purchases that can lead to kids making unauthorized transactions without realizing or understanding.

Khan adds that this concerns the FTC as confusing advertisements have the capacity to exploit children's insecurities and lack of knowledge, according to Yahoo News..

With this, the FTC is exploring a stricter implementation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), that protects kids and the vulnerability of their private information.

The FTC Has Always Been Monitoring Advertisements

Kids' advertisements have always been in the government's radar as regulators have been attempting to address the same issue time and time again.

In fact, the FTC has banned all TV advertising targeting kids younger than 8 years old in the 1970s, along with certain ads catering to older children as well.

The move was so controversial that the congress revoked the decision of the commission's rulemaking body a decade after, Yahoo News recalls.

But, the Federal Communications Commission only has power over certain advertisements and only covers those on television, which is why digital ad issues are just being explored.

This leaves regulators with only a few tools to keep track of kids' media on the internet, where threats to privacy and safety are growing at an exponential rate.

At the moment, COPPA is the only federal law that defines what content is directed at children, and what instruments are there to address the problems in children-focused advertisements.

However, Gizmodo writes that it is important to note that COPPA is a privacy law and not an advertising law, which leaves room for the FTC to expand its boundaries on ad regulation.

Nonetheless, the FTC believes that child protection in the online space is an issue that everyone should be vigilant about, which is why they are planning this crackdown.

At the moment, the plans about the project remain vague, but the commission remains eager to pursue the enforcement in the near future.