Google To Pay $170 Million To Settle FTC Claims That YouTube Collected Kids Data Illegally

Google and YouTube will pay $170 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General that YouTube illegally collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, the FTC announced. From a report: The fine is a record in a case related to alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), according to the FTC. "YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients," said FTC Chairman Joe Simons. "Yet when it came to complying with COPPA, the company refused to acknowledge that portions of its platform were clearly directed to kids. There's no excuse for YouTube's violations of the law."

Under the settlement, YouTube is required to develop and maintain a system that lets channel owners to identify "child-directed content" so that YouTube can ensure it is complying with COPPA. In addition, Google and YouTube must notify channel owners that their child-directed content may be subject to COPPA's obligations and provide annual training about complying with COPPA for employees who deal with YouTube channel owners.

Just another day...

[fustakrakich]

Hardly seems newsworthy anymore. Google can lose that much in a coin toss and not blink

Re:

[Joce640k]

The worst part is that they're still being allowed to "settle" without any criminal record.

That shouldn't be allowed at these levels, the case should go to court and a "guilty' verdict should be passed. They should have a record, three-strikes rules should be applicable to them.

Re:

[BringsApples]

What would it matter if they have a criminal record? What, they lose their right to vote, and carry arms? Miss out on job opportunities? Be disgraced by their community? Please.

Re:

[Joce640k]

Lots of ways:

Fines can get bigger and bigger if they have past record (just like jail sentences get longer for repeat-offenders).

Their reputation will suffer if people are able to call them a criminal company without being sued for libel.

The board members who approved this action can be fired if the share price suffers as a result of all the above.

Use your imagination.

Re:

[BringsApples]

Use your imagination.

Oh. In imaginary land, I guess everything that you said is true. But in my imagination land, I like to be more, well, imaginative:

Like, in my imagination land, the simple fact that the company operates the way it does, is enough for The People to simply reject it outright. This way there's no need for any laws to be enacted, followed, ignored, or avoided (purchased). In my imagination land, society doesn't have a void that corporations have total control over, and allow us to fill as they desire.

But bac

Re:

[Joce640k]

But back in the real world, do you have any examples of any of this BS ever happening to a corporation?:

No, because they always "settle" before anything goes anywhere near a courtroom.

Re:

[BringsApples]

Yeah. See the problem with corporations is that they're both made up of people, and are themselves a person too. So when it comes down to "court time" in order for the corporation itself to go to court, it must be determined that the people by which the corporation is made, acted in line with their job(s), or did they act outside the parameters of their job(s).

My point in asking you if you've any examples of what you said, was to simply point out that there aren't any real legal maneuvers that coral corpo

Re:

[qeveren]

Settlements are tax-deductible! :D

Another Dupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

pennies

[sdinfoserv]

"In 2018 we delivered strong revenue growth, up 23% year over year to $136.8 billion, and up 22% for the fourth quarter to $39.3 billion," said Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and Google
It's like back in the 1990's when then Attorney General Janet Reno threatened Microsoft with a $1M per day and Gates laughed saying "I make a $1m per hour"

And what's thats gonna do?

[no-body]

Will the characters of the goons in the upper levels change or just manifest is more: OK, we squared this thing away..., let's party!

Illegal privacy abuses

[sinij]

What Google is doing is a privacy abuse, but only illegal when done to minors. It is perfectly fine to do this to any adult, because they asked for it, right?

Re:Illegal privacy abuses

[sdinfoserv]

It's not "abuse" when you accept and use the product knowing what's happening- users are actually the product begin sold. Minors can not legally consent to anything. Any contract with a minor is "null and void" in the United States. Therefore minors can't "consent" to any EULA (end user license agreement). Adults have the "option" to read the EULA and understand that every thing you do online will be consumed, monetized and sold. Eric Schmidt when CEO of Google stated "Google is not free. The cost is your information". - that was a decade ago. Privacy lost this one almost 20 years ago.

Re:

[sinij]

Adults have the "option" to read the EULA and understand that ...

This is legal fiction.

Not only EULA is written to be intentionally incomprehensible, if you were to read every EULA for every service one normally uses, it would take years to go through all that reading.

Re:

[sdinfoserv]

You're choice to mindlessly ignore an EULA by robotically clicking "I ACCEPT" is not the definition of "fiction"

Re:

[sinij]

It is not a choice. EULA is incomprehensible by design, with many highly paid legal professionals working on making it so. It is also designed to be a moving target and can be changed under you post-agreement without effective way to opt-out of new changes.

I challenge you to go through sign up process with any major social media service, thoroughly read EULA and Privacy Policy and then come here and report exactly what it says about collecting and using your data. (Spoiler alert - it doesn't discuss speci

Re:

[sdinfoserv]

And, who exactly "forces" you to use the platform. that too is a choice.

Re:

[sinij]

The platform in this case also includes World Wide Web and banking, because these companies are tracking you regardless of EULA in all your shopping, browsing, and any other public (e.g. city records) information.

Why do we care about this?

[Jarwulf]

Why do we need to be so much more concerned about kid's privacy than adult privacy? Do you really mind how many hours Google knows you watched Magic School Bus or Sesame Street? Or that you walked back and forth from elementary twice a day for a year? Adults on the other hand and teens to some extent have lives filled with secrets that they might not want to get out. Pretty sure a given person would much rather the public find out about their love for the Duck Song at 8 years old than their clandestine aff

Pathetic fine

[sit1963nz]

Thats like fining a repeat drink driver $2.

The fines need to be a percentage of shares from the top 100 shareholders. Only then will there be any change in behaviour.

Fines like this are just considered a cost of doing business, its probably less than their annual power bill.

Companies are run by PEOPLE, the decisions are made by PEOPLE. Fines and even prison time need to be levied against PEOPLE to make these corporations change behaviour.

that is it??

[Alan Bloomberg]

The point of the fine is supposed to be to make breaking the law painful to the company, not to grant them immunity after the fact for a what is a rounding error to them. I am seriously losing all faith in the legal system.