Kids' TV faces new Net restrictions

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"If Sponge Bob Square Pants is on myriad products, including junk food and junk toys and clothing and wallpaper or whatever, then the program itself is a program-length commercial for those products," Linn said.

She and others said they viewed the rules as only a first step in protecting children from what they consider excess commercialization. They said they'd like to see the FCC impose a ban on so-called "interactive" advertising, a technique they fear will take hold in the future.

"We don't want kids to be able to click on a Web address or on a specific character from the television screen and be transported to a commercial Web site," said Patti Miller, a representative from the California-based advocacy group Children Now, which helped to negotiate the final rules. "This type of advertising would violate the FCC's rules about the separation between program and advertising content."

"We don't want kids to be able to click on a Web address or on a specific character from the television screen and be transported to a commercial Web site."

--Patti Miller, representative, Children Now

That issue has already attracted attention in Congress. Last summer, a U.S. Senate panel unanimously adopted an amendment to a massive communications bill that proposed requiring broadcasters and cable operators to "prevent interactivity" in commercial messages aired during children's programming. The amendment's sponsor, Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.V.), has not decided whether to reintroduce that bill but hopes to hold hearings this year, a spokeswoman said.

The idea is sure to encounter renewed resistance from the advertising industry, which has accused the policy's supporters of "stifling the development of new technologies and innovative forms of programming even before they exist."

It's unclear what steps the FCC might take next. FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, acknowledged in a statement (PDF) last year that some parts of the rules "are not models of regulatory clarity and certainty" or were too scaled back. Agency spokesman Clyde Ensslin said there are no immediate plans to issue any clarifications to the current rules, and any inquiries are being handled on a "case by case" basis.

What remains is "a quiet-before-the-storm period," said Tarah Grant, a McLean, Va.-based attorney with the firm Hogan & Hartson. "The rules are now effective, but the FCC hasn't begun investigating complaints for alleged violations."