Advertisements and Privacy: Comparing For-Profit and Non-Profit Web Sites for Children

Abstract

This study compared the ads on for-profit and non-profit Web sites for children in light of privacy concerns. A content analysis of 751 advertisements displayed on 196 popular children's Web sites was conducted. The results showed that, compared to for-profit Web sites for children, non-profit Web sites hosted fewer ads, and such ads were less likely to contain prompt words and enticements. Findings also indicated, however, that non-profit Web sites still carried ads that would link children to for-profit Web sites that collected personal information. Results are discussed in terms of the need for non-profit Web sites to make more efforts to fully protect children's privacy online.

Keywords:

• Children's For-Profit Web Sites
• Children's Non-Profit Web Sites
• COPPA
• Online Advertising

Notes

The FTC used the following criteria for sampling. The FTC purchased a list of all for-profit Web sites (.com) from Nielsen//NetRatings (11,154), with the exception of pornography sites, that had been visited by at least one child (aged 2–12) during the month of June, 2000. Two criteria were used to determine if the sites were primarily targeting children. First, only the Web sites with a composition index equal or greater than 100 were included in the sample. Second, only the Web sites that were visited by 5,000 children or more based on national projected audience were included in the sample. Out of the initial 11,154 Web sites, 1,253 met both criteria. However, only 144 were included in the final sample. The rest of the sites were excluded because of the following reasons: they were not primarily directed to children 12 or under; the URLs were no longer accessible; and sites were duplicated (FTC, 2002).

The actual ratio of for-profit and non-profit Web sites for children is unknown. In fact, no estimate of the toal number of Web sites for children on the Internet currently exists. However, using the same sampling procedures outlined in the current study, Cai and Gantz (2000) generated a ratio of 3:7 between the non-profit and for-profit Web sites for children. A few years later, Cai and her colleagues (Cai, Gantz, Schwartz, & Wang, 2003) employed the same procedure and generated a ratio of 2:8. The ratio in the current study is 3:7.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaomei Cai

Xiaomei Cai (PhD, Indiana University, 2001) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, George Mason University.