Abstract:

Digital advertisements are now one of the most widespread marketing strategies and they appear in non-standardized forms which are not recognized easily as advertisements. Therefore, certain criteria are being developed internationally for the types of advertisements which take advantage of children’s naivety by preventing them from being able to critically evaluate the content of the advertisement. This study examines the legal regulations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which aim to protect children against digital advertisements. These international regulations are lack of a uniform child concept in terms of age limit, and children are mostly protected within the scope of personal data protection law and consumer rights. On the other hand, with the General Comment No. 25 adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2021 and the Digital Services Act adopted by the European Union in 2021, the responsibility of large platforms to protect children’s rights has been recognized at the international level. In addition, the responsibility of companies to exercise due diligence for the protection of children is also recognized. Although the child’s right to be protected from economic exploitation is expressed in terms of digital advertisements, international regulations are torn between protecting the rights of the child “as a consumer” and the rights of the child “as a human being”.

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