Wednesday, 4 September 2019

Unlabelled [Reality-TV-Fanatics] Google, YouTube fined record $170 million for violating children's privacy

[Reality-TV-Fanatics] Google, YouTube fined record $170 million for violating children's privacy

by Crime Time Tamil on September 04, 2019

Would be nice if these companies learn from this but they wont because they can afford these fines .
cg

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/459854-google-youtube-fined-170-million-for-violating-childrens-privacy?userid=243382

Google, YouTube fined record $170 million for violating children's privacy

By Harper Neidig - 09/04/19 09:09 AM EDT
Google has agreed to pay $170 million in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New York's attorney general over charges that YouTube had made millions of dollars over the years from violating children's privacy laws.

The fine is by far the largest ever imposed on a website for violations of the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires companies to obtain parental consent before collecting data on children under the age of 13.

Google and YouTube will pay $136 million to the FTC and the remaining $34 million will go to the New York attorney general's office.
The FTC alleged that YouTube violated COPPA by collecting the personal information of users who watched videos that were clearly directed toward children and then used that data to serve up targeted advertising.

"YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients," FTC Chairman Joseph Simons said in a statement. "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 agreement, YouTube will also have to require content creators uploading videos to designate whether they're intended for children. Last week, the site announced that it was launching a separate site for children's content.

In a blog post on Wednesday morning, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said that the site would be disabling all targeted advertising on videos intended for children.

"Today's changes will allow us to better protect kids and families on YouTube, and this is just the beginning," Wojcicki wrote. "We know how important it is to provide children, families and family creators the best experience possible on YouTube and we are committed to getting it right."

The latest penalty is considerably higher than the previous record COPPA fine, which came earlier this year when the popular social media platform TikTok agreed to pay $5.7 million to the FTC.

Despite the record fine, the FTC is again facing criticism from privacy advocates who believe the agency isn't going far enough to crack down on tech giants, which have been the subject of heightened regulatory and political scrutiny over a number of privacy concerns.

The FTC approved the settlement in a 3-2 vote along party lines, with both Democrats on the commission dissenting and criticizing what they see as a paltry fine and a lack of meaningful constraints on Google and YouTube's business model.

"This outcome here is also inconsistent with how we approach other violators of COPPA," dissenting Commissioner Rohit Chopra said in a statement.

"When small players and upstarts violate COPPA, the companies pay dearly and the executives are investigated and, if liable, held personally accountable. Here, where a dominant incumbent engaged in widespread violations, the company is paying a slice of their profits from wrongdoing and executives avoid scrutiny."

The move comes as the FTC is still weathering criticism over a record $5 billion settlement it reached with Facebook in July for privacy violations stemming from the company's practices that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Critics argue that, despite the relatively large sum, the $5 billion settlement was insufficient to deter a firm worth nearly $500 billion from further wrongdoing and said that the conditions of the settlement lacked meaningful restraints.

Wednesday's settlement marks the third time the FTC has sanctioned Google over privacy violations since 2011. That year, the company entered into a consent agreement with regulators over charges that it had deceived users about its privacy practices. A year later, the FTC fined Google $22.5 million for violating the consent agreement by tracking users of Apple's Safari browser without their knowledge.

Children's privacy advocates have repeatedly complained about YouTube's practices to regulators over the years, alleging that the company was collecting substantial profits by systematically violating COPPA.

When privacy groups found out about the proposed conditions in the settlement earlier this summer, they argued that a requirement to designate whether content is meant for kids would effectively let YouTube off the hook and leave the responsibility of COPPA compliance with content creators.

Democratic Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who voted against Wednesday's announced fine, said that the settlement should have included a requirement that YouTube police its site for potential violators who continue to serve up targeted ads to children without parents' permission.

She noted in a statement that the agreement does not prevent other state attorneys general from pursuing a more restrictive settlement with YouTube over the privacy violations that the FTC uncovered.

"This order will make YouTube safer for children than it has been, but, without a backstop to catch inappropriately designated content, it will not make YouTube safe enough," Slaughter said. "More action is needed, and I hope that our partners in state attorneys' general offices can finish the job."

Updated at 9:23 a.m.