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M. Jill Austin: Associate Professor of Management and Chair of the Management and Marketing Department, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
Mary Lynn Reed: MBA student, Management and Marketing Department, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA
Going online is a favorite pastime for millions of American children. Almost 10 million (14 percent) of America's 69 million children are now online with over 4 million children accessing the Internet from school and 5.7 million children going online from home (http://www.ftc.gov-b). The Internet entertains children through communications with their favorite cartoon characters, contests that award prizes, interactive games, access to electronic pen pals, and chat room discussions. Learning is also enhanced through children's use of educational Web sites for homework and the informal browsing of Web sites (http://www.ftc.gov-b). However, there are some possible negative consequences for children who access kid-based Web sites.
Kid-based Web sites
Advertising on kid-based Web sites has become both a rapidly growing market for consumer companies and a concern for parents. With a click on an icon, children can link to advertisers and be granted tremendous spending power. Children are an important target group for consumer companies because of their tremendous spending power. In 1995, children under age 12 spent $14 billion, teenagers another $67 billion, and together they influenced $160 billion of their parents' incomes (Azoulay, 1998). Many critics question the appropriateness of targeting children in Internet advertising. This paper will explore the issues that require that children be treated as a "special case" by advertisers, the legal and regulatory issues for advertising to children on the Internet, and industry self-regulation efforts. Finally, ethics issues that should concern Internet advertisers are discussed and recommendations are included for both advertisers and parents.
Advertisers' responsibilities to children
Because children lack the analytical abilities and judgment of adults (http://www.ftc.gov-b), Internet advertising directed to children raises special concerns. Web sites use "one-to-one marketing" that permit companies to develop personal relationships with children and the sites are designed to hold children's attention for long periods of time (http://www.cme.org). Children are vulnerable to Internet advertising in a number of ways. They may be unable to:
- Evaluate the accuracy of information they view (http://www.bbb.org).
- Understand the nature of the information they provide to advertisers or...