THE QUIET COMMERCIALISATION OF CHILDHOOD IN DIGITAL SPACES
Law and ethics have recognised the childhood as a phase of development that requires watch and protection from premature economic and social pressures. The digital era has quietly dismantled the protective boundary. Children spend major part of daily lives on digital platforms which are not merely designed for education, learning and entertainment but for commercial engagement1. Digital games provide virtual rewards to increase engagement, learning restricts progress unless paid features are unlocked, social media primarily for entertainment integrates brand promotions and glorifies influencer lifestyles.
Unlike television advertisements, digital branding is discreet and is mingled with the experience itself2, a child watching a video is algorithmically pushed towards toy-centric content, a child playing a game encounters branded characters and in-app purchases are presented as a part of activity, a child following a content creator comes across promotional products as a part of their daily routine. Even though policies require the tags of “paid promotions” or “ad,” a child generally lacks the cognitive skills to understand and interpret the label3. What appears as legally compliant is generally psychologically persuasive.
Though statutorily present the child centric laws are significantly insufficient to deal with the situation where the children’s preferences, attachments and identities are shaped by continuous digital branding, since, they primarily focus on abuse, neglect, exploitation. There is a clear absence of focused legal analysis on digital branding as a structural and developmental harm to children. Most of the regulations cover branding either under the consumer protection laws or an advertising compliance concern, without viewing it from the perspective of child rights jurisprudence. This paper fills the gap by examining digital branding through the lens of invisible exploitation, power asymmetry and cognitive vulnerability, which are clearly missing from the contemporary legal frameworks
UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL BRANDING IN CHILD ORIENTED DIGITAL SPACES
Traditional advertisements were clearly distinguishable however the current digital centric brandings are embedded in the experience itself thereby making it indistinguishable. Digital branding can be better understood when looked from the perspective of everyday digital practices. Contemporary children’s platforms are based on “freemium” model i.e. the access is technically free and open however the meaningful participation is locked behind purchases4. Popular gaming platforms may allow basic playing but restrict the social status, visual identity, progress unless purchased. Branded skins, themed avatars, and limited-edition items are provided only after purchase thereby compelling children to make payments to get a sense of belongingness and achievement. Thereby creating a false assumption that progress and identity relate to spending. These practices integrate commercial messaging into play and learning.
Video sharing platforms aimed at younger audience also plays a central role. Recommendation systems are based on content that maximises watch time thereby encouraging toy centric, repetitive “unboxing” formats and content creator lead lifestyle content. Researches have already shown that such videos frequently promote products without explicit advertisement cues, relying rather on excitement, repetition, and peer identification5. Children encounter product promotion as a part of daily life routine rather that as an advertisement.
Learning applications for children often inculcate themes which are popularly seen as motivation tools are infact encouraging paid upgrades by incorporating reward systems such as stars, badges, streaks, and locked levels. At the same time, popular learning applications have already included AI into their platforms which collects behavioural data including response times, preferences and engagement patterns which helps refine future commercial strategies.
What distinguishes these examples is their normalisation rather than illegality. None of these practices are prohibited rather they are widely accepted features. Digital branding is often personalised and continuous. Children are not exposed to same messages repeatedly rather they are exposed to messages as per their behaviour, preference and emotional response. Over time, this shapes their desires, habits, and sense of identity. Hence, digital branding acts as a commercial ecosystem which converts child’s responses into economic value. Such digitally governed development is not adequately dealt or even acknowledged by the current legal system.
LEGAL BLINDSPOTS IN ADDRESSING DIGITAL BRANDING AND CHILD PROTECTION
Most of the prevalent laws aim at protecting young children yet they fail to address the issue of structural commercial influence created by digital branding, they focus more on traditional harms such as abuse, exploitation, cybercrime, data misuse etc thereby leaving gaps when it comes to developmental and psychological commercial exposure.
In India, the Digital Personal Data and Protection Act,20236 is a significant legislative framework in protecting children’s data. Section 9 aims to outlaw any data processing that could be harmful to a child’s welfare, such as tracking, behavioural monitoring, and targeted advertising. Additionally, before processing a child’s personal data, valid parental consent is required. This clause, however, depends on precise age verification and parental approval, both of which are readily evaded in real-world situations on sites where kids share accounts or self-report their age. Additionally, under industry self-certification, exclusions for “verifiably safe processing” run the risk of legitimizing some commercial profiling.
India’s Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 20237 and associated criminal law reforms, such as the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), combine offenses related to children (such as stalking, harassment, and sexual exploitation), but they continue to concentrate on traditional crimes like the recording and distribution of child images or sexual exploitation. These laws fail to consider the issues linked with digital branding and soft persuasion, commercial exploitation, and algorithmic targeting. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 20128 and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 also guard against exploitation, abuse, and neglect, but they do not adequately address commercial immersion in digital spaces.
The United States’ Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)9 deals with several protection for children such as prohibiting data collection and targeting advertisements for children below 13 yet they fail to address the issues such as behavioural modification of children or commercial gains linked with children. In a similar fashion, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)10 contains several restrictions for data processing of children and age-related legal protections yet they fail to cover the situations where children are motivated and behaviourally influenced by content creator linked digital branding or commercially driven content moderation.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)11 and its General Comment No. 2512 on children in the digital environment call on states to safeguard children from detrimental digital practices, such as commercial profiling and targeting, at the international human rights level. However, these standards remain soft law in the absence of enforcement mechanisms.
There is a large vacuum in child protection since these legislative frameworks collectively acknowledge specific damages but fail to acknowledge the cumulative effect of ongoing commercial influence through digital branding.
ILLUSTRATIVE CASES AND REGULATORY RESPONSES TO DIGITAL BRANDING
1. COPPA enforcement: Disney and YouTube
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the US forbids websites and services from gathering personal information from children under the age of 13 without the approval of their parents. After allegedly mislabelling well-known cartoon films on YouTube, The Walt Disney Company reached a $10 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 202513. YouTube continued to gather information and show targeted advertisements to children under the age of thirteen, in violation of COPPA’s regulations, because they were not appropriately labelled as “made for kids.”
Two clear issues are hence brought forth. (1) protections can be easily circumvented by the creators and platform policies (2) even when violations are brought to light the primary focus is penalties rather than preventing structural issues in digital branding.
2. Age verification and consent problems in India
The DPDP act has provisions which requires platforms to verify a user’s age and obtain parental consent before processing children’s data. However, age verification remains weak in enforcement because most of the platforms rely on self-reported ages, which can easily be falsified. Research found that 88% of Indian parents support stricter age verification or shutting down accounts opened with falsified ages under the DPDP framework- this highlights the fact that current legal implementation is not largely trusted or effective14.
Even when law demand parental consent, the platforms do not generally implement strict age-related checks and government consultations have highlighted that tools like Aadhar or Digilocker are not technically feasible for reliable age verification.
3. Gaming platforms and micro transactions
Platforms like Roblox show another legal vacuum. Numerous investigations and complaints have found out that platform’s monetisation strategies such as lootbox and microtransactions15, are not adequately and sufficiently understood by the children before they enter the in-app purchases which resemble gambling and branded experience. These practice in effect lead to the financial exploitation of the children yet no legal framework has adequately addressed the legal vacuum.
4. Reliance on junk food
Investigative reports have shown that social media marketing in form of short videos or influencer content have exposed children to junk food branding which is now shaping their consumption habits. This exposure has led to childhood obesity and unhealthy eating patterns16. The harm here is not by a single advertisement but by constant brand presence normalised via entertainment and peer culture- which are yet not covered by advertising laws.
5. Blurred advertising
Recognised even by the US Federal Trade Commission. News reports and policy papers highlight that children cannot clearly distinguish between the content and the marketing when branding is involved withing influencer content or unboxing videos or gameplay. Hence, disclosure-based models are insufficient for children, though legally compliant they continue to have persuasive intent.
6. Kidfluencers
India has seen an increase in the number of child creators who also participate in brand collaborations on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. These children are simultaneous targets as well as vehicles of digital branding, exposing other children to peer based commercial persuasion. Though not illegal, it raises serious concerns over economic exploitation, consent, and commodification of childhood.
7. Ban or restrict usage
Few European countries such as Spain and Greece have proposed to ban or restrict the usage or access of social media; this recognises the systemic harm caused by social media. These proposals explicitly revolve around mental health and online safety they also implicitly recognise the harms caused in young minds by digital branding and targeted contents. These contents are incompatible with right to develop of children, leading the proposals to start not only from an isolated incident but accumulated evidence from digital environment
These incidents reveal a serious pattern that digital branding causes diffuse, cumulative harm which remains legally invisible because it does not fit within the traditional notions of crime against children such as abuse, exploitation etc. this reinforces the need to reconceptualise the idea of digital branding not only as a marketing technique but as a child rights issue requiring structural legal response.
DIGITAL BRANDING AS A FORM OF INVISIBLE EXPLOITATION
Traditional children protection norms treat exploitation as something physical and extreme such as child labour, sexual abuse, trafficking, neglect. Digital branding challenges the scope and understanding of exploitation by operating in a form that is neither overt nor violent yet deeply influential. It has no connect with physical exploitation but has a great effect on a child’s cognitive capabilities, development, attention span, emotional vulnerabilities, and self-identification. This makes digital branding as a form of exploitation which is yet largely uncovered by the legal frameworks.
Children are exposed to digital world sometimes out of necessity for learning process, sometimes for mental growth and development or stay connected to the world outside. However, these spaces are being structured to maximise the commercial gains. Games reward branded purchase, videos normalise the idea of brands by peer culture, algorithm reinforces preferences benefiting the advertisers. Children are no longer merely the passive recipients of the content; they are now the source of data production whose behaviour is being constantly analysed and monetised. This idea of innocent childhood is now replaced with commercially exploitative childhood, though lacking legal markers of coercion or fraud it is nowhere less than a subtle species of fraud.
Generally, the laws rely upon the parental consent or disclosure requirements, these mechanisms fail to address the child’s ability to comprehend the long-term commercial manipulation. A child might play a game or watch a video but fails to understand how repeated brand exposure is shaping his desire, habits, and identity. Exploitation occurs due to the one sided informational and psychological power that platforms possess against the child and the absence of a meaningful consent on the part of the child17.
UNCRC assured rights such as healthy development, dignity, freedom of thought etc to every child. Digital branding underscores the child rights and raises serious concerns udder UNCRC. It undermines right to play, turning joy into commercial gains. Under a profit driven market child is considered less as rights holders and more as consumers.
Recognition of digital branding as a form of exploitation is not equivalent to claiming criminalisation of marketing all together rather demanding a shift in legal imagination under which digital branding is legally recognised and protection is given to cognitive and psychological development in the digital ecosystem.
JUDICIAL APPROACH TO CHILD VULNERABILITY AND COMMERCIAL EXPLOITATION
The courts have not yet delved into the topic of digital branding however the strong jurisprudential background and existing judicial reasoning on child vulnerability, economic exploitation and abuse provides a strong doctrinal foundation for its legal recognition. Indian constitutional jurisprudence has maintained the fact that children require special protection since they acquire a uniquely vulnerable position in the society due to their limited capacity of informed decision making and unequal bargaining power. In the case of MC Mehta vs State of Tamil Nadu18, the court recognised the fact the exploitation of children need not always be violent or coercive, it can arise under any circumstance which exposes children to a condition where undue advantage of the immaturity for economic gain can be taken. Though the case dealt explicitly with child labour the principle can even be expanded to cases where the children are treated as commercial products by systematic monetisation of their preferences and patterns in the digital environment.
The court in the case of Gaurav Jain vs Union of India19 reinforced the emphasis on dignity and development. In this case child protection includes not merely physical safety but also preservation of child’s future potential and self-worth. Digital branding disrupts this idea by shaping the children’s identities by consumption driven narratives, normalising the material desire for the sense of belonging and success from early age. These influences subtly affect the developmental process a child which the courts proactively seek to protect.
The Supreme Court in the landmark decision of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India20 further strengthens this argument by recognising privacy as a multidimensional right that includes informational self-determination, autonomy, and dignity. In digital ecosystem driven by algorithms children are incapable of exercising their right of informed autonomy. Parental consent systems cannot compensate for this imbalance, as they do not address how children’s data is being constantly used to curate commercial experience to maximise engagement and consumption.
International jurisprudence and regulations reflect similar concerns. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement action against YouTube for violation of children online privacy reinforced that children’s online engagement is valuable and can be subjected to exploitation. Though it dealt with data protection, it impliedly recognised the harms linked with platform driven monetisation of children’s digital lives. The legal and regulatory developments require a reconsideration of digital branding as a form of invisible exploitation that demands child centric and rights based legal response and not merely being seen as a neutral advertising technique21.
TOWARDS CHILD CENTRIC LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR DIGITAL BRANDING
There is an imminent necessity to give digital branding a legal recognition as a form of an invisible exploitation thereby necessitating a shift in how child protection is conceptualised in the legal framework. Commercial influence over a child is no longer a peripheral issue, the digital environment around the child is designed in a way that the behavioural pattern, emotional attachments, preferences are constantly being monetised. Hence, the child centric legal framework must move beyond isolated prohibitions to include architecture of digital platforms itself.
The data protection laws such as DPDP Act provide a starting point i.e. they restrict certain forms of data processing and targeted advertisements directed at children, they remain limited in scope in dealing with situations where the question is of the structure of digital platforms itself when it comes to embedding branding into games, learning and education tools, social interactions. A recognition to the fact that harm can arise even in the absence of unlawful data collection- where the commercial messaging is integrated with the digital experience thereby making it hard for the children to differentiate between the branding and content.
International law helps with guidance in this regard. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges the state to consider the best interest of the children in all actions affecting them. General Comment No. 25 on children’s rights in the digital environment explicitly calls for regulation of digital business models that exploit children’s data, attention, and vulnerability. However, unless these guidelines are translated into binding domestic norms that impose positive duties on platforms rather than relying merely on the parental consent and verifying age, these standards continue to remain aspirational.
The child centric legal framework requires a shift in responsibility from children or parents to the digital intermediaries. The platforms must bear increased obligation and have strict duty of care, mandatory obligation to conduct child rights impact assessments, restrict commercial and profit-oriented integrations in child-oriented spaces and ensure that child learning and playing platforms are not converted into marketplace22. This approach aligns with the international human rights perspective that corporate actors have independent human rights responsibilities especially where they are involved with child related digital sources.
Ultimately, the digital branding does not require stoppage of commercial activities or advertisements in digital media. It rather requires the readjustment of legal priorities to ensure that childhood is not shaped by the market logic and commercial activities. A recognition to psychological and developmental harm by the digital ecosystem requires immediate legal recognition. The law must recognise the realities of children’s digital lives and prioritise child dignity, autonomy, and development in digital age.
Disclaimers like “paid promotions” must be replaced with a structure where the content that promotes a product is clearly separated from entertainment and learning content, using child friendly warnings or visual signs which can be meaningfully interpreted by a child in cases of advertisements.
Government and child rights bodies should periodically review popular apps, games and platforms for education used by children to ensure that they do not rely on excessive branding or commercial pressure.
CONCLUSION
Digital branding has silently transformed children’s digital spaces into sites of commercial influence. Unlike traditional advertising, it does not appear in form of shirt video or in visible intervals, it is rather embedded in the experience itself and surrounds children through games, videos, content creators, and algorithms that shape their preferences, identities, and behaviour over time. Existing legal framework both in India as well as internationally remain largely limited in scope focusing merely on data protection, explicit or violent crimes, superficial age verification, or parental consent, therefore it fails to address the deeper issue that influences the cognitive and development of the child. This paper has argued that when children’s attention, emotions and experience are systematically monetised, the practice moves beyond marketing and enters them realm of invisible exploitation. Acknowledging this reality requires a shift in legal and policy framework, children must be viewed as active rights holders entitled to dignity, autonomy, informed consent, and development without external influence and not merely as consumers. A child centric legal approach does not demand elimination of digital media or commerce; it requires a clear boundary to be drawn in cases where market logic starts shaping the childhood itself. Without such a shift, the law risks protecting children only in theory, while allowing everyday digital lives to be governed by forces that place profit above well-being.
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Footnotes
1. UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2021: On My Mind – Promoting, Protecting and Caring for Children’s Mental Health 52–55 (2021).
2. Sonia Livingstone & Julian Sefton-Green, The Class: Living and Learning in the Digital Age 67–69 (2016).
3. U.S. Fed. Trade Comm’n, Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers 5–6 (2019).
4. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Children & Consumer Policy: Consumer Policy and the Child 34–36 (2016).
5. Brigitte Nerlich & Clare Williams, Unboxing Childhood: How Influencer Marketing Targets Children, 18 J. Consumer Culture 233, 239–42 (2018).
6. Digital Personal Data Protection Act, No. 22 of 2023, § 9 (India).
7. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, §§ 95–99 (India).
8. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, No. 32 of 2012 (India).
9. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506.
10. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council, 2016 O.J. (L 119) 1.
11. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3.
12. Comm. on the Rts. of the Child, General Comment No. 25 (2021) on Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/GC/25.
13. Press Release, U.S. Fed. Trade Comm’n, Google and YouTube Will Pay Record $170 Million for Alleged Violations of Children’s Privacy Law (Sept. 4, 2019).
14. Internet & Mobile Association of India, India Internet Governance Report 2023, at 41.
15. UK House of Lords, Gambling Harm–Time for Action, HL Paper 79, ¶¶ 388–402 (2020).
16. World Health Organization, Tackling Food Marketing to Children in a Digital World 9–12 (2016).
17. Ari Ezra Waldman, Privacy as Trust: Information Privacy for an Information Age 102–04 (2018).
18. M.C. Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1996) 6 S.C.C. 756 (India).
19. Gaurav Jain v. Union of India, (1997) 8 S.C.C. 114 (India).
20. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 S.C.C. 1 (India).
21. Comm. on the Rts. of the Child, General Comment No. 16 on State Obligations Regarding the Impact of the Business Sector on Children’s Rights, ¶¶ 19–22, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/GC/16 (2013).
22. UNICEF & Global Kids Online, Children’s Digital Rights: A Review of Children’s Use of Digital Media 29–33 (2019).