by Sylvia Mendoza
The National Financial Educators Council (NFEC), a social impact company focused on financial wellness, estimates that U.S. advertisers spend approximately $2.9 billion a year for targeted ads to children. They project that the number will reach $21.1 billion by 2031.
In 2024, NFEC launched “Stop Advertising to Kids—Stop Predatory Advertising,” a campaign that urges lawmakers to pass legislation to stop marketing or advertising to kids under eight years old. According to NFEC, by the time a young person turns 21, they will have seen more than one million advertisements through television, YouTube, video-on-demand, social media, or gaming.
NFEC’s 2024 report, Empower and Protect: Ban Advertising to Kids and Mandate School Financial Education, stated that “marketing to children under 8 years old should be stopped because they can have a negative impact on children’s self-esteem, financial behaviors, health, and activities.” The report cites information from the American Psychological Association, which contends that marketing to kids at or under eight years old is “inherently unfair because it capitalizes on younger children’s inability to attribute persuasive intent to advertising.”
Predatory marketing, sometimes referred to as “stealth” marketing, is a business practice that manipulates vulnerable people, such as kids, into buying products using misleading tactics to make products look more enticing. Experts say young children cannot differentiate between content and advertising.
In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent federal agency whose mission is to protect consumers, sponsored a webinar, titled “Protecting Kids from Stealth Advertising in Digital Media.” During the webinar, then FTC chair Lina Khan addressed children’s vulnerability to marketers, explaining that the more time kids stay online, the more likely their information can be collected. In addition, Khan said, “Developing brains are more susceptible to deceptive or harmful practices where long term and immediate effects can be serious.”
Selling junk food
According to a 2024 Australian study conducted by Deakin University in Melbourne, teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 years old are, on average, targeted everyday with at least one ad on gambling and 24 junk food ads. Its youth report, #Digital Youth – How Children and Young People are Targeted with Harmful Product Marketing Online, also found that children as young as eight years old are targeted with approximately 13 junk food ads per day.
Research from the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health revealed that the food, beverage and restaurant industry spend nearly $14 billion per year on food advertising in the United States. Their research found that food companies often engage in “targeted marketing” to children and teens.
Marketing junk food to kids is not just a problem in the U.S. The issue is a global one. NCD Alliance, which is based in Switzerland, is a network of more than 400 civil society organizations dedicated to eradicating noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and mental health conditions. According to its 2023 report, Selling a Sick Future, “Commercial marketing of unhealthy products towards children and young people is a key factor behind the global rise of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which cause 41 million deaths annually, with rising rates among children and young people in countries of all resource levels.”
In February 2023, the Predatory Marketing Prevention Act (PMPA) was introduced in the New York State Senate, and a similar bill was introduced in the New York Assembly in January 2025. Both bills focus on false or misleading advertisements of food and food products. In a statement issued when he introduced his bill, State Senator Zellnor Myrie, who is now running for Mayor of New York City, said, “Young people in communities like mine are inundated with deceptive and predatory marketing of unhealthy food. This industry spends billions researching the most efficient ways to sell their products to kids. The PMPA gives New York a chance to fight back.”
At press time, there had been no movement on either bill.
Vaping
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 1.63 million or 5.9% of youth across the country used vaping products in 2024, despite the legal age to smoke or vape in the United States being 21. As of 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, e-cigarettes were the most common tobacco product used by middle and high school students.
In 2007, when e-cigarettes first came on the market, its manufacturers maintained that they did not target teenagers. However, court documents in a 2020 lawsuit against JUUL, one of the largest manufacturers of e-cigarettes, revealed the company purchased ads on such kid-friendly media as the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Seventeen Magazine, as well as educational sites for middle and high school students.
In April 2023, JUUL settled a lawsuit brought by six states—California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and New York, as well as Washington, DC—and agreed to pay $462 million for its role in the youth vaping epidemic. According to a statement issued at the time by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, the agreement was the “largest multistate settlement with JUUL and places the most stringent restrictions on JUUL’s marketing, sales, and distribution practices in order to protect and prevent minors from underage vaping.”
In February 2025, New York’s Attorney General filed another lawsuit against 13 vape companies for distributing, marketing and selling flavored vapes, such as “Strawberry Donut,” “Tropical Rainbow Blast,” and “Pink Lemonade.” Flavored vapes were banned by New York state law in 2020.
“The vaping industry is taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook: they’re making nicotine seem cool, getting kids hooked and creating a massive public health crisis in the process,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “For too long, these companies have disregarded our laws in order to profit off of our young people.”
Gateway to gambling
Another industry that is targeting teens is sports betting. While most teens obviously cannot gamble, “social sportsbook” apps, like Fliff, draw young fans in. Social sportsbooks, which function much like a regular sports betting app, are marketed as appropriate for ages 13 and up. Unlike a regular sports betting app, social sportsbooks use “virtual currency” instead of real money.
“The people who have gambling problems, who are vulnerable to gambling problems and especially youth, can develop gambling problems based on usage of these apps,” Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, told The Washington Post.
Sports betting is now legal in 38 states (including New Jersey) and Washington, DC. In most states, the minimum age to gamble is 21; however, in four states—Montana, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island, along with DC—it is 18. What critics of these social sportsbooks fear is that kids will be compelled to bet with real money once they are of age.
“This is the type of activity that can absolutely be potentially harmful,” Brett Abarbanel, executive director of UNLV’s International Gaming Institute told The Washington Post. “It might not be for everybody, but there will absolutely be people, especially youth, who transition especially into real money gambling.”
Protecting kids
There are laws in place to protect children and teens from predatory marketing. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act is a federal law that gives parents control over what personal information websites can collect from children under 13 years old. It requires companies to obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing a child’s personal information online.
In addition, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) limits the amount of commercial time in children’s television programming. The Children’s Television Act of 1990 established these limits. And yet, some companies find a way around those protections—so states have put additional laws in place.
“Protecting New Jersey’s youth from unlawful business practices and marketing strategies designed to exploit their vulnerability and lure them into unhealthy or harmful conduct is a responsibility that the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs takes very seriously,” says Cari Fais, Director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs.
To that end, the New Jersey Data Privacy Law (NJDPL) was passed in January 2024 and took effect January 15, 2025. According to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs’ website, the NJDPL “guarantees New Jersey consumers certain rights with regard to their personal data and imposes requirements on the individuals and businesses (called “controllers”) that process that data.” Personal data includes home addresses, driver’s license numbers, login credentials, and browsing history. As for protecting kids, the NJDPL states, “When a controller knows or willfully disregards that a consumer is between the ages of 13 and 16, the controller must get the consumer’s consent before processing the consumer’s personal data.”
Fais says the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs has taken steps to protect New Jersey kids “through enforcement actions that include investigations to halt the unlawful sale of flavored e-cigarettes and vaping devices targeting children and teens with enticing flavors and bright packaging and through lawsuits to stop TikTok and Meta from employing deceptive tactics to coerce adolescents into spending excessive amounts of time on social media platforms that expose them to the risks of sleeplessness, depression, eating disorders, cyber-bullying, and suicide.”
When businesses violate laws made to protect kids, actions can be taken. In New Jersey, for example, consumers can report suspected violations of the NJDPL to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs via their website (njconsumeraffairs.gov).
Fais says, “These enforcement actions send a clear message that New Jersey will not allow corporations to enrich themselves through marketing strategies that harm and exploit our vulnerable young residents.”
Discussion Questions
- Should companies be banned from mining consumer data? Is data privacy important to you? Why or why not?
- Do you agree or disagree that advertisers should not be allowed to market to children under the age of 8? Explain your answer.
- Do you regularly see ads for junk food, vaping or sports betting? If so, how much do you think they influence you? Explain your answer.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2025 issue of The Legal Eagle.