Rein in food marketers?

Fast-food companies trying to be “friends” on social-networking sites; placing funny, grainy, homemade-looking clips on video sites for people to share around; developing advergames for kids’ sites – these are what a new 98-page report on food marketing in digital media is about. The report, by the Washington-based Center for Digital Democracy, will be presented to “the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday [today], the eve of an FTC deadline for public comment on food marketers' tactics to reach children across all media,” CNET reports. It adds that the Center “instigated the enactment of the federal Child Online Protection Act [COPA] with its digital marketing study in the mid-'90s.” Meanwhile, CBS News took a thorough look at the very immersive advertising in sites like Neopets, Whyville (where Toyota’s promoting virtual cars in this online world for tweens) – see “Advergaming: Online Games Chock-Full Of Products — From Skittles To SpongeBob.”