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| (Photo: YouTube) |
by Elizabeth Weise, USAToday, 7 April 2015
A coalition of consumer and child advocacy groups is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's YouTube Kids app, saying it is unfair and deceptive marketing aimed at children under five.
"It's just one, long, uninterrupted ad," said Jeff Chester of Democratic Media. "It turns back the clock 30 years in terms of the role that advertising plays in kids programming."
The app, launched in February, is available on both the iPhone and Android platforms.
It features short videos that are algorithmically filtered for child-friendliness, according to Google, which also has a team that manually samples the videos to make sure they're child-appropriate.
It also allows parents to set a timer on how long kids can view videos, to turn off the search functions so kids can only see videos on the home screen and it doesn't collect any information from users.
However, Josh Golin, with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says there's nothing child-friendly about an app that delivers a steady stream of advertising that masquerades as programming.
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A coalition of consumer and child advocacy groups is asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's YouTube Kids app, saying it is unfair and deceptive marketing aimed at children under five.
"It's just one, long, uninterrupted ad," said Jeff Chester of Democratic Media. "It turns back the clock 30 years in terms of the role that advertising plays in kids programming."
The app, launched in February, is available on both the iPhone and Android platforms.
It features short videos that are algorithmically filtered for child-friendliness, according to Google, which also has a team that manually samples the videos to make sure they're child-appropriate.
It also allows parents to set a timer on how long kids can view videos, to turn off the search functions so kids can only see videos on the home screen and it doesn't collect any information from users.
However, Josh Golin, with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says there's nothing child-friendly about an app that delivers a steady stream of advertising that masquerades as programming.