URGENT action must be taken to protect vulnerable consumers, and children in particular, from "oppressive marketing methods a consumers conference was told yesterday. According to Mr Jim Murray of the European Consumers' Organisation, children can be individually targeted for advertising on the basis of their specific circumstances and aspirations.
Mr Murray, formerly the Irish Director for Consumer Affairs, was speaking at the European Consumer Forum on "The Consumer and the Information Society" at Dublin Castle yesterday.
He said action must be taken urgently to combat misleading and unfair advertising and to protect consumers, and in particular vulnerable consumers like children, from intrusive and oppressive marketing methods.
It was wrong to believe the information society would be anarchic and uncontrollable, he said. It will be dominant by large economic whose rights in relation to copyright trademarks and intellectual property would he protected. An equivalent protection for consumers must be demanded.
Regulation had become urgent be cause already companies were gathering information from children about themselves and their families and tracking their computer use. Well established companies which abided by codes of conduct in media like television seemed to have abandoned these standards when it came to on line marketing.
He circulated examples of the kind of material being generated by organisations such as Disney and Kelloggs though he stressed that he was not saying they were using the information thus obtained to market oppressively.
For example, signing into the Disney site on the Internet involved not only a name, an e mail address and password, but date of birth and postal address. At the end it states: Notice: by submitting comments and suggestions you waive all rights to them and make them available for commercial use." Use of the site signifies your agreement to the terms of use".
Another site asked "Who do you wanna be?" and asked for details on the child, family, and interests. It also states: "Make sure you don't give out personal information about yourself unless you first have your parents' permission." Mr Murray questioned such a warning's effectiveness with children logging in to interactive cartoon games.
The kind of regulations which should be introduced to deal with this were: the clear labelling of advertising and promotions aimed at children, which should be separated from content the separation of children's contents sites from advertising sites; no direct interaction between children and product "spokescharacters", no on line micro targeting of children, and no direct response marketing.