kid Advocacy groups want FTC to analyze misleading promotion In YouTube children App
shopper and youngster advocacy groups signal letter to FTC, claiming the app fails to separate commercial content from non-commercial content.
a number of consumer and kid advocacy groups have signed a letter asking the FTC to investigate Google’s YouTube children app merchandising practices.
in step with the letter, the app violates the FTC’s endorsement information: “YouTube children fails to separate commercial content from non-industrial content material and is due to this fact unfair and misleading to children.”
The letter contains more than 40 pages of examples where advertising inside the app objectives youngsters, citing everything from “unboxing videos” that blur the strains between consumer-generated content and subsidized content to branded channels like the “My Little Pony” and “The McDonaldscorp” channel.
Jeff Chester, the director of the center for Digital Democracy, some of the groups that signed the letter, voiced his concerns in a file from the San Jose Mercury information, “this is the outlet shot in a new fight with Google, Nickelodeon, Amazon, Netflix, cartoon community and others which might be looking to make the most of this era of young children.”
Drafted via Georgetown regulation school’s Institute for Public illustration, the letter is signed with the aid of the following ten consumer and kid advocacy teams:
- shoppers Union
- marketing campaign for a commercial-Free Childhood,
- shopper Federation of the us,
- heart for Science within the Public pastime,
- children Now,
- American Academy of kid and Adolescent Psychiatry,
- consumer Watchdog,
- corporate Accountability world,
- Public Citizen and the
- heart for Digital Democracy
YouTube kids is billed via Google as an app designed specifically for kids, with videos “kids will love” and “oldsters can feel good about.” The app accommodates child-friendly channels with safe searching measures and settings that may be monitored by means of folks.
in line with the letter, a Google spokesperson told Reuters that Google had labored with a couple of companions and kid advocacy teams to develop the app.
“whereas we’re all the time open to comments on how you can improve the app, we weren’t contacted immediately by means of the signers of this letter and strongly disagree with their contentions,” stated Google’s spokesperson.
you could overview the letter to the FTC in full right here:
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