Children are unquestionably the most vulnerable and easily influenced customers the Internet can have. Children's ability to shop on-line is often made by accessing parents credit cards. Parental monitoring of childrens on-line time is not always available, therefore childrens access to on-line shopping sites is an issue parents and educators must address.
Can Your Child Buy Alcohol On-Line?
A report by the Center for Media Education (CME 1998) indicated that a total of 77 beer, wine and spirits sites were dedicated to selling these products to children. Their research was conducted through search engines, links to other sites, and through articles in the trade press. They discovered that many of these sites used cartoons, language, personalities, and music to attract their audience specifically targeted to youth. Their results indicated that 62% of all sites made specifically appeal to youth either by employing such techniques as cartoons, special music, or language. To view a sample of such a site, click on the following:
www.budweiser.com or
www.absolutvodka.com. According to the report by CME, beer and spirits companies clearly tend to target young audiences more than wine producers. The following chart illustrates the results from the Center of Media EducationÕs report on alcohol sale on the Web:
| % of all sites | % of beers | % of spirits | % of wine sites | |
| Use of cartoons/Motion video | 47% | 53% | 62% | 15% |
| Branded merchandise | 40% | 75% | 48% | 10% | Games/contests | 35% | 43% | 45% | 10% | Binge drinks | 32% | 7% | 76% | 5% | Youth -oriented Language/slang | 31% | 43% | 45% | 0% | Use of sound/downloadable sound | 29% | 39% | 34% | 5% | Information on music/films/art | 22% | 32% | 24% | 5% | Virtual Communities | 16% | 4% | 17% | 0% | Information on Sports | 19% | 36% | 17% | 0% | Chat rooms | 14% | 21% | 10% | 10% | Brand spokes-characters | 8% | 14% | 7% | 0% |
From looking at this data, cartoons and motion video are obviously the most prevalent of all the practices on commercial alcohol sites as well as the most popular method of appealing to youth. In analyzing this data, we can also see how beer sites promote most of their products through branded merchandise (75%). The fact interestingly suggests that language is indeed one of the most effect ways of promoting alcohol to youth through the Internet. Children are often most attracted to sites, which "speak their language," either through slang or specific "hip" words.
What About Tobacco?
In the context of tobacco, CME also reported significant findings illustrating how similar techniques used to sell alcohol are also employed to sell tobacco. However, due to the small number of popular brands featured on the Internet, sites promoting lifestyles of smoking, selling or distribution of tobacco products were included. To determine whether these sites targeted youth, CME also looked at similar characteristics as when assessing alcohol. However, in contrast to the report on alcohol they discovered that more tobacco sites are using chat rooms and/or message boards in an effort to build pro-smoking communities. In fact, 23% of all sites featured chat rooms and message boards. Many of these sites attempt to glamorize smoking by including images of famous personalities smoking. The following table illustrates how many of these sites offer on-line purchasing of these products:
| % of all sites | % of cigar sites | % of cigarette sites | % of smoking sites | % of accessory sites | |
| On-line purchasing of product | 48% | 60% | 43% | 29% | 100% |
According to this data, tobacco products were available for 48% of all searched sites, indicating how widespread and accessible these sites are to their audience, more specifically to children. The fact that many of these sites required some type of payment method, either through credit cards or less rigorous methods is important to note. A child could easily print an order form, purchase a money order from a local convenience store and send in for tobacco products. Overall, while tobacco products are not directly targeting children, the Internet is a powerful tool of communication and children can easily access such information from their own homes.
CME Recommendations--
Overall, CME is very concerned with the techniques used by both alcohol and tobacco companies to promote their products on-line. Recommendations suggested by CME to combat on-line promotion of alcohol and tobacco include:
-- Congress should conduct hearings on the on-line marketing of alcohol and tobacco to the nation's children.
-- The Food and Drug Administration should carefully monitor on-line tobacco sales or promotion and develop more effective safeguards to protect youth from such advertisements.
-- The national public health community should initiate programs to educate the public about these issues.
-- The Federal Trade Commission should use its authority over commercial advertising to investigate the practices mentioned previously, and FTC should also initiate further investigation of on-line privacy to include alcohol and tobacco marketing strategies.
For more information on the Center for Media Education'sreport on alcohol and tobacco on the Web, log onto:
www.cme.org/publications/alcohol_tobacco/alcrep.html
What About Illegal Drugs?
Browsing through the Web, we came also across an interesting site known as
www.hightimes.com, a Web site specifically dedicated to the promotion of marijuana and other drugs. Unfortunately sites likes these are too common and too easily disposable to children. This Web site is an example of the kinds of material and information that is out there, illustrating the potential dangers of misuse of the Internet among children. The renegade magazine High Times,offers an extensive on-line collection of marijuana-related news articles, a calendar of events, and an interactive forum to answer questions and concerns about the use of marijuana. Most importantly, this Web sites provides specific instructions on how to grow marijuana for those who want to get "totally stoned." Other sites similar to this one also promote the use of marijuana and even provide "portable instructions" on how to grow marijuana and transport it to different locations. Buying hemp seeds in the United States is illegal, yet there are plenty of sites dedicated to the marketing and selling of it.
Although we must consider the benefits of on-line shopping, we must also take into account the possibility that children do and will continue to use such information if not monitored accordingly. Such sites are not specifically targeted towards children or minors, yet children still have access and eventually active usage of such information. Parents must be educated on these issues, and more importantly, learn how to monitor such sites in order to prevent misuse of the Internet.
