Beginning in the early 1980s, advertisements on milk cartons in the United States were used to publicize cases of missing children.
During the late 1970s and 1980s in the United States, missing child cases garnered a great deal of news media attention.
By March 1985, 700 of 1600 independent dairies in the United States had adopted the practice of publishing photos of missing children on milk cartons.
[7] Today, AMBER Alerts use technology including notifications to mobile phones to give up-to-date information about potential child abductions.
[14] In the late 1980s, the pediatrician Benjamin Spock said that the cartons terrified small children at the breakfast table with the implication that they, too, might be abducted.
"[15] Historian Adam Garfinkle suggested a financial motive: "For many years companies got 'public service' tax breaks by putting pictures of 'missing children' on milk cartons.