Mobile marketing gives companies direct access to consumers through smartphones, apps, email, text messaging, social media, and personalized advertising. That access can be powerful, but it also creates a responsibility to respect consumer privacy, obtain permission, and communicate honestly. When marketers ignore those responsibilities, the result can be more than a damaged reputation—it can lead to government enforcement, financial penalties, and loss of consumer trust.
The Cerebral Case: When Consumer Control Is Taken Away
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) case involving Cerebral demonstrates how digital marketing practices can become both unethical and legally problematic. According to the required course resource, Cerebral allegedly continued billing consumers after they requested cancellation, required customers to navigate a complicated cancellation process, and disclosed sensitive personal health information and other data to third parties for advertising purposes. The FTC also alleged that Cerebral failed to clearly disclose material cancellation terms before charging customers (States News Service, 2025).
One important law involved was the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires companies using online negative-option or subscription programs to clearly disclose material terms and obtain consumers’ informed consent before charging them. The case also illustrates a larger ethical concern emphasized in our course: customers should maintain control over their information and their relationship with a company.
The consequences were significant. More than 40,000 consumers were scheduled to receive more than $5 million in refunds because of the FTC action (States News Service, 2025). Beyond the financial harm, consumers potentially experienced frustration, loss of control over sensitive information, and reduced trust in digital services.
Deceptive Advertising: Google and iHeartMedia
My additional research shows that privacy is not the only ethical risk in digital and mobile marketing. Truthfulness matters just as much.
The FTC and several states took action against Google and iHeartMedia over advertisements promoting the Pixel 4 smartphone. According to the FTC, radio personalities delivered nearly 29,000 endorsements describing personal experiences with the phone even though many had not actually been provided Pixel 4 devices before recording the advertisements (Federal Trade Commission [FTC], 2022).
The FTC alleged that these representations violated the FTC Act because the endorsements created a misleading impression that the speakers had personally used the product. State judgments required approximately $9.4 million in penalties, while the orders also restricted future misrepresentations and required compliance monitoring (FTC, 2022).
For consumers, deceptive endorsements interfere with informed decision-making. A customer may purchase a product because a trusted personality appears to provide an authentic firsthand recommendation. When that experience is fabricated, the consumer is not receiving the transparency needed to make a fair purchasing decision.
What Ethical Mobile Marketing Should Look Like
Chapter 11 of Digital Marketing: Foundations and Strategy emphasizes permission marketing and identifies relevance, respect, and recipient control as important principles for responsible communication (Zahay et al., 2024). Those ideas should guide any mobile marketing campaign.
Marketers should obtain clear opt-in permission before sending promotional communications, explain how customer data will be collected and used, safeguard that information, and provide simple methods for consumers to unsubscribe or withdraw consent. Communications should also contain truthful claims, accurate sender information, and transparent disclosures. Under the CAN-SPAM Act, commercial email must avoid deceptive subject lines and provide recipients with an effective opt-out mechanism (Zahay et al., 2024).
The bigger lesson from both cases is that legal compliance should be the minimum standard—not the final goal. Ethical marketing requires companies to respect customers even when technology makes it possible to collect more data, send more messages, or personalize advertising more aggressively. Mobile marketing works best when convenience and personalization strengthen trust rather than exploit it.
References
Federal Trade Commission. (2022, November 28). FTC, states sue Google and iHeartMedia for deceptive ads promoting the Pixel 4 smartphone. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/11/ftc-states-sue-google-iheartmedia-deceptive-ads-promoting-pixel-4-smartphone
States News Service. (2025, May 8). More than $5 million in refunds sent to consumers as a result of the FTC’s action against Cerebral over deceptive cancellation practices.
Zahay, D., Labrecque, L. I., Reavey, B., & Roberts, M. L. (2024).Digital marketing: Foundations and strategy(5th ed.). Cengage Learning.
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