Google Fined With $170 Million For Breaking Kids Privacy Law

According to the report, the search giant has violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 federal law, and will pay $136 million to the Federal Trade Commission. The additional $34 million will be paid to New York State to resolve all allegations.

"YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients," The Verge quoted 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."

Reports also suggest that the settlement requires Google to change to the privacy of YouTube Kids app, and also ask creators to add labels to their content.

Responding to the settlement YouTube wrote in a blog post, "Starting in about four months, we will treat data from anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user. This means that we will limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service."

.@YouTube baited kids with nursery rhymes, cartoons, and more to feed its massively profitable behavioral advertising business. It was lucrative, and it was illegal.

My full dissenting statement: https://t.co/9PRyiKPwQe

— Rohit Chopra (@chopraftc) 4 September 2019

Besides, YouTube also clarified that comments and notification are no more going to be a part of children's content and it will also restrict ads on this kind of content.

During the settlement, two democrats did not agreed with the bargain. According to Commissioner Rohit Chopra, this is the third time Google is violating the privacy norms since 2011.

He also tweeted, "YouTube baited kids with nursery rhymes, cartoons, and more to feed its massively profitable behavioral advertising business. It was lucrative, and it was illegal."