By: Jeff Chester | Jul 19 2022
By: Jeff Chester | Mar 22 2022
Microsoft is rapidly expanding its surveillance advertising complex—first acquiring AT&T’s powerful Xandr targeting system last December, and adding a few weeks later the online gaming and eSports giant Activision Blizzard.
By: Jeff Chester | Jan 26 2022
By: Jeff Chester | Dec 8 2021
(Excerpt from WHO release):
Just as with tobacco, a global and comprehensive approach is required to restrict digital marketing of alcohol.
Children and young people are especially at risk from the invasion of their social spaces by communication promoting alcohol consumption, normalising alcohol in all social contexts and linked to development of adult identities.
By: Jeff Chester | Oct 17 2021
For decades, the U.S. has allowed private actors to basically create the rules regarding how our data is gathered and used online. A key reason that we do not have any real privacy for digital media is precisely because it has principally been online marketing interests that have shaped how the devices, platforms and applications we use ensnare us in the commercial surveillance complex.
By: Jeff Chester | Aug 10 2021
Online grocery shopping became a pandemic response necessity for those who could afford it, with revenues to exceed $100 billion in 2021. Leading supermarket chains such as Kroger, big box stores like Walmart, online specialist companies such as Instacart, and the ubiquitous Amazon, have all experienced greater demand from the public to have groceries ordered and then quickly delivered or available for pick up.
By: Jeff Chester | Jul 13 2021
The Trade Desk is a leading AdTech company, providing data-driven digital advertising services to major brands and agencies.
By: Jeff Chester | Mar 11 2021
Contextual Advertising—Now Driven by AI and Machine Learning—Requires Regulatory Review for Privacy and Marketing Fairness
What’s known as contextual advertising is receiving a big boost from marketers and some policymakers, who claim that it provides a more privacy-friendly alternative to the dominant global surveillance-based “behavioral” marketing model. Google’s plans to eliminate cookies and other third-party trackers used for much of online ad delivery are also spurring greater interest in contextual marketing, which is being touted especially as safe for children.
By: Kathryn C. Montgomery, Jeff Chester, and Katharina Kopp | Sep 10 2020
TikTok (also known by its Chinese name, Dǒuyīn) has quickly captured the interest of children, adolescents, and young adults in 150 countries around the world. The mobile app enables users to create short video clips, customize them with a panoply of user-friendly special effects tools, and then share them widely through the platform’s vast social network.
By: Jeff Chester | Dec 5 2019
EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 5, 2019 AT 12:01 AM
Contact:
Jeffrey Chester, CDD, jeff@democraticmedia.org, (202) 494-7100
Josh Golin, CCFC, josh@commercialfreechildhood.org; 617-896-9369
Leading child advocacy, health, and privacy groups call on FTC to Investigate Children’s Digital Media Marketplace Before Proposing any Changes to Privacy Protections for Children
By: Jeff Chester | Sep 11 2019
Working closely with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (epic.org) and US PIRG, CDD led a campaign to oppose the acquisition of Doubleclick by Google. CDD opposed the deal on privacy, consumer protection and competiton grounds. We all foresaw what would happen if Google was allowed to swallow a leading digital marketing giant--more data collect
I played a key role helping get the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) passed by Congress in 1998 (when I was executive director of the Center for Media Education). Since then, I have tried to ensure that the country’s only federal law addressing commercial privacy online was taken seriously.
By: Jeff Chester | Jul 26 2019
FOR RELEASE
July 26, 2019
Consumer Privacy Organizations to Challenge Facebook Settlement
Statement from Groups
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“The Settlement Fails to Provide Meaningful Relief to Facebook Users”
WASHINGTON, DC – Many of the nation’s leading consumer privacy organizations are urging a federal court in Washington, DC to consider public comments before finalizing a proposed settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook.
By: Jeff Chester | Jul 8 2019
Letter sent on June 3 2019 to Chairman Simons and FTC Commissioners in response to a call made by the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood and CDD, represented by our attorneys from the Institute for Public Representation (IPR), Georgetown University Law Center with the commission.
By: Jeff Chester | Mar 30 2018
A digital “great awakening” has occurred with unprecedented global attention given to the commercial surveillance business model at the core of our collective digital experience.
By: Jeff Chester | Mar 8 2018
By: Jeff Chester | Feb 13 2018
By: Jeff Chester | Jan 20 2018
Computational politics—the application of digital targeted-marketing technologies to election campaigns in the US and elsewhere—are now raising the same concerns for democratic discourse and governance that they have long raised for consumer privacy and welfare in the commercial marketplace. This paper examines the digital strategies and technologies of today’s political operations, explaining how they were employed during the most recent US election cycle, and exploring the implications of their continued use in the civic context.
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By: Jeff Chester | Dec 15 2017
By: Jeff Chester | Oct 18 2017
WASHINGTON, DC – October 18, 2017—A number of brands of “smartwatches” intended to help parents monitor and protect young children have major security and privacy flaws which could endanger the children wearing them. A coalition of leading U.S. child advocacy, consumer, and privacy groups sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, asking the agency to investigate the threat these watches pose to children.
