YouTube pays $170 million for violating children’s privacy

Google subsidiary YouTube pays $170 million as part of a settlement for violating children’s privacy. The Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General will receive the settlement money.

As part of the settlement, Google has also promised to comply with the rules from now on and no longer collect data for targeted advertising without parental consent. Videos that creators have labeled as children’s videos will no longer have targeted ads, YouTube says.

With image recognition, YouTube will also try to find videos that are aimed at children, but the company is not obliged to do so. The lack of that obligation prompted two members of the Federal Trade Commission to reject the settlement; because three other members were in favour, the FTC approved the settlement anyway. Another reason is that the two committee members wanted to hold YouTube top people personally liable for the privacy violations. They also thought the amount of 170 million dollars to be paid was not high enough, writes The New York Times.

YouTube collected private data from children in order to sell more targeted advertisements and thus make money. Video makers must indicate in four months whether they are videos aimed at children. In addition, YouTube will assume that someone who watches children’s videos is a child and does not collect data about that viewer at that time, even if they are logged in with an account of someone who has indicated that they are adults.