Google has agreed to pay $30 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit in the United States that accused the company of collecting personal data from children under the age of 13 on YouTube.
The lawsuit alleged that this data collection, which occurred between July 2013 and April 2020, violated US child privacy laws. While Google has denied the allegations, the settlement makes small payments available to an estimated 45 million people who watched YouTube as children during that period.
This settlement marks the third significant children’s privacy penalty for Google in recent years, highlighting a pattern of persistent compliance issues rather than isolated mistakes.
Most notably, in 2019, the company paid a record $170 million to settle allegations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that YouTube had illegally collected data from children without parental consent, a direct violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The fact that the current lawsuit’s timeframe overlaps with the previous settlement period demonstrates how these problems have continued across multiple years and regulatory actions.
The settlement arrives as regulators are significantly strengthening protections for children online. The FTC recently finalised major updates to COPPA rules that impose stricter consent requirements and limit how companies can monetise children’s data.
Simultaneously, states including California, New York, and Texas are enacting their own comprehensive children’s privacy laws, creating a complex web of federal and state requirements for tech companies.
This regulatory acceleration suggests Google’s settlement strategy may be an effort to resolve these legacy issues before even stricter rules and potential penalties take full effect.
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cc: Nigerian Tribune
