Advertising

Pediatricians and consumer advocates are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate practices for collecting online data about children, amid concerns advertisers might be manipulating children with targeted ads.

Privacy for America, a coalition of top advertising trade organizations and companies, released a comprehensive new framework for nationwide privacy legislation that would fundamentally change the way consumer privacy and security are protected in this country. The framework represents a new approach to data privacy that would not rely on the current ‘notice and choice’ model, which presents consumers with endless and complex privacy notices that they are essentially forced to accept if they want to participate in today’s economy.

The Trump campaign lashed out at Facebook after company executives said they were considering changes to rules around political ads that could affect the campaign’s ability to target its supporters on the platform. The outcry came as Trump’s reelection team has undertaken a massive spending blitz on Facebook aimed at countering the House’s impeachment inquiry. Trump’s page alone promoted more than $830,000 worth of ads in the seven days ending on Nov 17, according to Facebook’s ad archive.

Twitter will no longer allow certain types of geographic or keyword targeting for advertisers promoting any type of cause, as part of rules aimed at blocking most political-related ads on its platform. Geotargeting isn’t allowed at the ZIP Code level nor are advertisers allowed to target users by their political leanings or affiliations, as part of efforts to limit issues-based advertising. Twitter defines issues-based ads as those related to civic engagement, economic growth, environmental stewardship or social-equity causes.

Since the time of the early advertising-supported newspapers, economic incentive has worked to bring people together around a common set of shared information. Maximizing ad revenue meant offending as few readers as possible by at least attempting a balanced presentation of the facts. The search for balance began to retreat with the arrival of cable television, but the economic model of maximizing revenue by maximizing reach still governed. The targeting capability of social media algorithms, however, has extinguished the traditional economic model.

Facebook is considering restricting politicians' ability to use highly detailed demographic and personal information to narrowly target would-be voters with ads, policy chief Nick Clegg confirmed in a possible shift in the social network's broadly permissive policy on political advertising. Clegg declined to discuss any other changes, saying the company is still in the decision-making process.

An international "grand committee" of lawmakers called for a pause on online micro-targeted political ads with false or misleading information until the area is regulated. The committee, formed to investigate disinformation, gathered in Dublin to hear evidence from Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other experts about online harms, hate speech and electoral interference. The meeting was attended by lawmakers from Australia, Finland, Estonia, Georgia, Singapore, the UK and United States.

AT&T Mobility, LLC, will pay $60 million to settle litigation with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the wireless provider misled millions of its smartphone customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds.

Top Republicans are privately worried about a new threat to President Trump’s campaign: the possibility of Facebook pulling a Twitter and banning political ads. Facebook says it won't, but future regulatory pressure could change that.

Twitter and Facebook are staking out starkly different positions about how to handle political ads, but it is unclear how either approach will prevent the spread of misinformation. Some social-media websites have banned ads related to candidates, political parties and legislation. But blocking issues-based advertising, such as ads from advocacy groups or trade organizations, can be hard to enforce, tech executives and media buyers say.