Advertising ethics online

Advertising Ethics Online

The rise in digital media prominence over the last three decades has changed the dynamic of advertising to be much more interactive. This interaction has led to unforeseen changes in human vulnerability when interacting with advertisements. Consumers are presented with advertisements in many more ways than they used to be, leaving older generations unprepared to recognize and react to advertising through new media. More specifically, younger generations are now in an unprecedented role as they consume content from a young age.

Technological developent and advertising

Technological developments of the last decade have enabled large corporations to access increasingly private information from consumers such as location, search history, and more. All of this information can then be interpreted and used to tailor advertisements to people on an individual basis. This has risen many concerns regarding user privacy, data protection, reach, and corporate transparency in advertising.

Underage vulnerability to advertising

Targeting children with lucrative advertisements is one of the greatest concerns. The problems centrally lie in children’s inability to “critically evaluate” advertisements and thus identify their “persuasive intent.” A study conducted by the World Advertising Research Center found that implicit persuasion, such as the use of celebrities or subliminal messages and associations, play a strong role in persuading children with advertisements. Furthermore, cognitive psychology research has concluded that it is not until at least after adolescence, and often “not until early adulthood” that the brain’s prefrontal regions, which control the response to subliminal stimuli, are fully developed and able to recognize and resist subliminal stimuli. Therefore, these children are not able to process the information that they are being given, which could be seen as a form of brainwashing.

A study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission in 1997 found that 86 percent of the sites listed on a popular children’s website directory collected “personally identifiable information” from children. . In response to constantly rising concerns regarding children’s engagements with advertising, the FTC instituted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in 2000. COPPA requires online advertisers to gain parental consent when advertising to anyone under the age of thirteen. However, targeting children in advertising is still largely unregulated as “only twenty-three percent of ad sites that collect personal information of children under thirteen comply with COPPA.”

Targeted advertisements

Over the last decade, advancements in technology have led to a now prominent practice in targeted advertising. Targeted advertising is advertising carried out to specific demographics based on classifications of age, gender, location, purchase, and search history among many others. More personal classifications have generated cause for concern. In chapter five of 'The Fourth Revolution', Floridi talks about privacy and informational friction and defines informational privacy as the “freedom from informational interference or intrusion, achieved thanks to a restriction on facts about her that are unknown or unknowable” . Rather than creating informational friction, there is little to know information friction present that prevents targeted advertisements from getting information about people and their preferences. These targeted advertisements shed light on the lack of privacy in online interactions and address the larger issue of whether or not having tailored advertising and information is really in the best interest of the consumer.

Targeted advertisements are of large concern to the general population, and compounded with the concern of pre-adulthood vulnerability they are even more distressing when presented to younger consumers. A study conducted by Masaryk University surveyed 14-to-16-year-olds’ perceived privacy control and the effects of targeted advertisements. This study found that while “privacy control salience” enabled more probable recognition of targeted advertisements by subjects, the subjects were more likely to be persuaded by the targeted advertisements.

An increasingly common solution proposed to the privacy concerns of targeted advertising is full transparent compensation for personal information. One proposal published in the Computer Networks journal proposes utilizing ad brokers who offer monetary compensation for personal information from consumers piece by piece and are paid for their services by advertisers. Such an exchange fulfills the Nash Equilibrium game theory, in which all players receive the best outcome, and has already come to life via data-payment cafes.

Transparency

Issues such as underage vulnerability and privacy invasion via targeted advertisements have led to increased attention regarding corporate transparency in online advertising. But there has yet to be any significant legislation or action taken to correct the concerns in either practice.

In 2011, the American Advertising Federation’s Institute for Advertising Ethics published an outline of Principles and Practices for Advertising Ethics in order to set a baseline on moral objectives in advertising. The central theme lay in transparency, particularly establishing consumer relationships “in a fair, honest, and forthright manner.” Guidelines like such, however, have no means of enforcement and are interpreted in the industry as ‘suggestions’ as opposed to requirements. Most companies will create and stand by their own privacy and ethical policies, but recent events have led to public scrutiny of such policies.

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data leak and Google Plus’ API bug are two of the larger scandals that have brought such concerns to the forefront of the legislative agenda. The former breach allowed Cambridge Analytica to access private user data that was used for political persuasion using methods similar to those used in targeted advertising. . The latter sprung from a bug in an API update that left private user data exposed to those who might use the API and led to the shutdown of Google+’s commercial platform.

Ethical Issues

Unauthorized Purchases

The ease with which young children can now engage with advertisements on computers, tablets, and smartphones has given light to a new dilemma surrounding payment authorization. The inability to critically evaluate advertisements is leading kids to make purchases online and in apps through their parents' bank accounts that parents have not approved of.

In January of 2014, Apple Inc. agreed to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that required Apple to pay back a reported $32.5 million dollars in app store and in-app purchases to parents whose children made purchases without the parents' consent. The settlement also required that Apple instill further security measures for in-app purchases, including getting explicit parental consent for any purchase. The Federal Trade Commission said in a release regarding the settlement, Template:Quote

While enforcement of the Federal Trade Commission's ruling led Apple Inc. to take measures such as fingerprint identification and password requirement for all billing purposes, the issue of unauthorized purchases still looms large. The Federal Trade Commission mandated that Apple establish these changes by March 31, 2014, but a notorious since-deleted twitter rant by rap artist Kanye West made it clear that in-app purchases were still a problem. Template:Quote

Unwanted Exposure

Case of pregnant girl and target ads

Keeping track of tracked information

Settings --> Privacy --> Advertisement

Facebook shows what they know about you and you can correct/tailor it but that's ironic