Org Report

Advocates Who Filed the Privacy Complaint Against Google/YouTube Laud Improvements, But Say FTC Settlement Falls Far Short

Sep 2019 🇺🇸 Fairplay

This September 2019 statement from Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy responds to the FTC's settlement with Google over YouTube's alleged violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) — an enforcement action that traced back to a complaint the two groups had filed. Executive director Josh Golin, quoted in the statement, welcomes the FTC's decision to act after years of alleged noncompliance but argues the $170 million penalty was too small relative to Google's revenue from child-directed content, and objects to a settlement structure that shifted much of the compliance burden onto individual video creators rather than Google itself. The statement calls for stronger ongoing FTC enforcement and for Congress to update federal children's privacy law. TechKids Foundation includes this as a documented instance of advocacy shaping — and then publicly critiquing — a major children's-privacy regulatory outcome.

$170 million FTC-Google settlement

The FTC's 2019 settlement with Google over alleged YouTube COPPA violations included a $170 million penalty, which Fairplay's statement calls insufficient relative to Google's revenue from child-directed content.

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CITATION

Fairplay and Center for Digital Democracy. "Advocates Who Filed the Privacy Complaint Against Google/YouTube Laud Improvements, But Say FTC Settlement Falls Far Short." Fairplay, September 4, 2019. https://fairplayforkids.org/advocates-who-filed-the-privacy-complaint-against-google-youtube-laud-improvements-but-say-ftc-settlement-falls-far-short/

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