Campaigners have sent an open letter to Google, Facebook, YouTube, and other technology giants, demanding the closure of tailored advertising systems that target children.
The open letter[1], coordinated by Global Action Plan (GAP[2]) and made public on Friday, accuses Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft of utilizing "targeted, 'behavioral' advertising to children" on their websites.
While advertising is often a necessary element of online, free services, the coalition argues that collecting data in order to monetize and target adverts, when it comes to children, undermines their rights to privacy.
See also: Google accused of leaking personal data to thousands of advertisers[3]
"For under 13s, it shouldn't be happening at all: unless informed parental consent is granted, data protection laws expressly prohibit the datamining of young children on which behavioral advertising depends," the letter reads. "The fact that ad-tech companies hold 72 million data points on a child by the time they turn 13 shows the extent of disregard for these laws, and the extraordinary surveillance to which children are subjected."
However, young children are not the only subject of the letter. Instead, the signatories say that protection should be extended to under 18s, as minors may be more susceptible to the "pressures" of marketing, they may be less likely to recognize sponsored content, and less likely to understand data collection principles in general.
"There is no justification for targeting teenagers with personalized ads any more than there is for targeting 12-year-olds," the campaigners say. "You, the most powerful companies on the internet, have a responsibility to protect your users. With children online more than ever in a post-COVID world, we urge you to take that responsibility seriously and commit to ending behavioral advertising to children."
In total,