• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 16, 2023

Google on Monday urged lawmakers to require companies to take minors' "best interests" into account when designing services, and to prohibit companies from serving personalized ads to teens
-- including ads targeted based on a minor's age, gender or interests.

The proposal would allow companies to serve contextual ads to underage users -- meaning ads pegged to content currently being watched, current search queries, “general” location, and time of day.

Google said two years ago that it planned to stop serving personalized ads to users under 18, but hadn't previously called for a nationwide ban.

The company's suggestions are part of a larger proposed framework for laws aimed at protecting children and teens from potential online harms.

“We support regulatory approaches that promote both online safety and balanced practices,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs, stated in a blog post announcing the recommendations.

“Good legislative models -- like those based on age-appropriate design principles -- can help hold companies responsible for promoting safety and privacy, while enabling access to richer experiences for children and teens,” he added.

In addition to the suggested ban on ad targeting, Google also recommended that companies be required “to prioritize the best interests of children and teens in the design of their products.”

The company writes: “Online services used by children and teens should be required to assess the collective interests of children within comparable developmental stages, based on expert research and best practices, to ensure that they are developing, designing and offering age-appropriate products and services geared to the best interests of children and teens.”

The proposal comes as federal and state lawmakers are increasingly proposing -- and in some cases, enacting -- new laws aimed at protecting young users online.

So far, Arkansas, Texas, Utah and California have passed versions of such laws.

The tech industry group NetChoice -- which counts Google as a member -- successfully sued to block enforcement of the laws in Arkansas and California on the grounds that the measures violate the First Amendment.

The Arkansas statute prohibits teens under 18 from having social-media accounts without parental permission.

The California law (AB 2273) imposes requirements similar to ones Google now suggests. That law requires online companies likely to be accessed by users under 18 to prioritize their “best interests” and “well-being,” and restricts those companies from collecting or sharing minors' personal information.

U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman in the Northern District of California blocked the California law last month, ruling that its provisions likely “do not pass constitutional muster.”

For instance, she wrote, one provision prohibiting tech companies from drawing on minors' data for profiling and targeting doesn't appear to take into account “beneficial aspects of targeted information.”

Any laws that restrict how companies serve content or ads to teens could also effectively require companies to implement procedures aimed at determining users' ages.

Google's proposal calls for age “assurance” measures, which it says could range from users' declarations about their ages to companies' inferences to verification measures.

The company writes that “data-intrusive methods” -- such as requiring people to submit government-issued identification “should be limited to high-risk services (e.g., alcohol, gambling, or pornography) or age correction.”

Digital rights advocates have long argued that requiring people to verify their ages online infringes on the First Amendment right to access content anonymously.

Some judges have agreed with that position. For instance, when U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks in Fayetteville, Arkansas, blocked enforcement of that state's law, he wrote: “It is likely that many adults who otherwise would be interested in becoming account holders on regulated social media platforms will be deterred -- and their speech chilled -- as a result of the age-verification requirements.”

But the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently reinstated -- at least temporarily -- a Texas law requiring pornographic sites to verify users' ages. A federal district court judge blocked enforcement but Texas officials appealed to the 5th Circuit, which reversed the block while it considers the appeal.