Digital Advertising Ethics: Behavioral Advertising, Dark Patterns and Children
Beyond legal compliance, ethical digital advertising stresses honesty, fairness and transparency. Key concerns: online behavioral advertising (tracking and profiling), dark patterns that manipulate choices, and advertising directed at children, who are not developmentally mature.
Compliance with law is only a starting point; ethical advertising focuses on honesty, accuracy and fairness, and on avoiding bias. The Institute for Advertising Ethics (IAE) urges that advertisers treat consumers fairly, exercise high personal ethics, and never compromise consumers' personal privacy, keeping choices transparent and easily made.
Online behavioral advertising is criticized (e.g., Shoshana Zuboff's 'surveillance capitalism') because consumers are often tracked without their knowledge, cannot see the profiles built about them, and cannot correct inaccuracies.
Dark patterns manipulate users into choices they would not otherwise make (e.g., ads disguised as news stories). Advertising directed at children raises distinct ethical concerns because children are not developmentally mature; the chapter notes ages 6-12 are often viewed as distinct from ages 13-18, and in 2022 President Biden called to 'ban targeted advertising to children.'