This is the year we’ll stop marketers from tracking and targeting children online.
Senators Ed Markey and Josh Hawley have just proposed the strongest restrictions on marketing to children in more than twenty years. Their bill – which we helped shaped – reads like a CCFC wish list. Among other things, our legislation would:
- Ban all targeted marketing to children under 13. That means advertisers can’t use kids’ locations, interests, browsing habits, or anything else about them to target them with ads.
- Hold companies like YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat accountable for profiting off of the millions of underage children that regularly use their sites.
- Give teens important new privacy protections.
- Create a kid-focused division at the Federal Trade Commission to enforce these new rules.
This is big. It’s the first legislation that recognizes the internet’s prevailing business model is inherently bad for children – and with bipartisan co-sponsors, it has a real chance to break through Washington’s gridlock. But we must act now.
Will you build a safer internet for kids with an ongoing donation to CCFC?
Silicon Valley lobbyists are already flooding DC, working hard to derail any privacy legislation that threatens their profits. Your recurring monthly gift will let us build coalitions, educate lawmakers, and mobilize the grassroots support needed to see this landmark legislation to the finish line.
It’s widely expected that Congress will pass new privacy legislation this year. Let’s make sure it protects children and families, not Big Tech’s bottom line.