The settlement is the latest evidence of the scrutiny internet giants are facing over how they collect and use data from children for online advertising. Google was criticized this year by New Mexico’s attorney general for how it may collect children’s location data, while other privacy advocates have pressed for more transparency about how children may be tracked and targeted for ads on YouTube, which is owned by Google.
In an age when online privacy has become a significant public concern, Coppa is one of the few federal regulations in place. It requires companies to obtain explicit, verifiable permission from parents before collecting, using or disclosing personal information from children under 13 or targeting them with ads tied to their online behavior. Personal information includes cookies that track a user across websites and geolocation data, which is then used to send specific ads to specific people. Advertisers are typically willing to pay more for ads tailored to individuals and their online behavior rather than placing ads on specific websites in the hopes that they might be seen by people interested in their products.
Ad exchanges, which connect websites and potential advertisers through real-time bidding processes as pages load, must comply with Coppa when they know they are working with children’s sites.
Technically, AOL’s policies prohibited the use of its display ad exchange to auction ad space on children’s sites, but the company did business there anyway, according to the settlement documents, which examined AOL’s practices between October 2015 and February 2017. Its auctions of ad space on those sites regularly collected personal information from users, like they would on any website, then shared that with bidders, resulting in targeted advertisements.
An account manager for AOL in New York repeatedly told one client, called Playwire Media, that the company’s ad exchange could be used to sell ad space while complying with Coppa, which wasn’t the case, according to the settlement documents. Based on the statements, Playwire, which represented sites like Roblox.com, Neopets.com and Tweentribune.com, used the exchange to place more than a billion ads on space that was supposed to be covered by Coppa.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/business/media/oath-children-online-privacy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.