Study finds inappropriate ads common on websites aimed at children

Many websites for children, such as learning platforms, are free of charge; they are financed by advertising. Researchers from Radboud University in the Netherlands, the Belgian University KU Leuven and the German Ruhr University Bochum investigated the content of ads that are displayed on such websites.

“It was a mix of miscellaneous ads, some of them with alarming content,” says Professor Veelasha Moonsamy, computer scientist in Bochum.

Alarming contents

The researchers created a data set of around 2,000 websites that were specifically aimed at children under the age of 13. In the next step, the researchers downloaded the ads from these websites, accumulating approximately 70,000 files in total. This was partly because many pages contained several banner ads and partly because the researchers visited each page several times.

“The ads are extremely dynamic, they change every few minutes,” explains Veelasha Moonsamy, who is also a member of the CASA Cluster of Excellence, short for Cybersecurity in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries.

The pool that the researchers analyzed contained 1,003 inappropriate ads. Their content ranged from ads for engagement rings and racy underwear to weight-loss drugs, dating platforms and tests for homosexuality and depression, as well as sex toys and invitations to chat with women in suggestive clothing and poses.

Laws don’t apply

“Technically, laws do exist that regulate which ads children may and may not be exposed to,” stresses Veelasha Moonsamy. “But they are not being complied with.” This is because, from a technical point of view, there’s no difference between websites designed for children and websites designed for adults. As a rule, they’re all fed from the same pool of ads. This is unlikely to change any time soon.

Moonsamy explains, “The internet has been around for decades. It’s a complex system that works in a certain way, and we can’t simply implement fundamental changes willy nilly. Doing so could cause the whole thing to collapse.”