Is Online Marketing to Children Ethical?

So, I am currently in a journalism course that is focused on ethics in media and over the last couple of weeks we have been discussing the media-ethics issues in marketing and advertising.  

We discussed product placement, ethnic stereotyping, gender-specific stereotyping as well as advertising and marketing to children.  Marketing and advertising to children was our main focus as there are many ethical issues in place when dealing with it. 

In the class we watched a very well done documentary about marketing and advertising to children called, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood.  The film discusses, in great detail, the different channels that marketing and advertising companies use to target children.  One of the marketing and advertising channels the film focuses on is the Internet. 

Companies use a plethora of different online marketing strategies targeted at children, such as:

-       Links and apps sent to their mobile phones (this way parents aren’t even aware of it or they find out when they get the phone bill and at that point it is too late to do anything about it).

-       Other downloadable content to cell phones.

-       Online “games.”  Company websites have interactive games targeted at kids – again kids and their parents are not even aware of the fact that they being advertised to.

-       Chat rooms, such as Webkinz (a website that allows kids to join only after buying a product and then entering a code – the website then allows kids to chat, play games and shop some more).

In the film, all these different marketing strategies are looked at in order to add to the debate of whether or not, marketing and advertising, when it is directed toward children, should be regulated by the government or strictly the parent’s responsibility.  It is an American made film, where currently there are no government regulations on advertising to children. 

However, here in Canada, where there are government imposed restrictions on marketing to children, we still face the same issues when it comes to online marketing directed towards children because of the lack of regulations placed on the Internet.  Which leads me to my question for you, what can be done (if you think anything should be done) to regulate online marketing and advertising directed towards children?  Also, do you think online marketing to children is ethical? Why, or why not?

***Side note:  The documentary about advertising and marketing to children (linked above) is actually really interesting and worth the watch if you have an hour to spare (and the whole think is on YouTube, so it’s free!). 

How Global is Online Marketing?

This week in class we discussed the growth of the Internet globally and while it was pointed out that Africa has seen the largest growth in Internet use over the past few years, they still have a long way to go.  As I write this blog, I am speaking to my friend who lives in the Seychelles and is very much missing having a reliable Internet connection. 

She lives on a tropical island at a five-star resort that has the best of everything, yet when it comes to the Internet if she has a solid connection for ten minutes, she has hit the jackpot. 

Furthermore, I went to Swaziland two summers ago and if I wanted to go online to, this was my only option. 

Not exactly state the art.

It was expensive (in no way affordable for the people who actually lived there) and it was more or a less a waste of time.  I was lucky if in the thirty minutes, which I paid $17.00 dollars to get, I was able to open my e-mail.  On the one hand, I was forced to look at some of the advertisements on the screen but, on the other hand, none of the products and/or services I was looking at were actually available to the region of the world I was in at the time.  

So, I guess my question is: Is online marketing a truly global process or in today's world of hyper target marketing is there just more niche marketing?

Side note: this barely makes sense to me, so good luck!