YouTube Pays $170 Million for Collecting Data About Kids

Dubai – Masaader News

Google and YouTube video service will pay $170 million to settle allegations to break federal law by collecting personal information about children, according to Reuters.

YouTube had been accused of tracking viewers of children’s channels using cookies without parental consent and using those cookies to target million of dollars in advertisements to those viewers.

YouTube said in a statement on Wednesday that in four months it would begin treating all data collected from people watching children’s content as if it came from a child. “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 said on its blog.

In addition to the monetary fine, the proposed settlement requires the company to create a system for identifying content aimed at children and to notify channel owners about their obligations to get consent from parents before collecting information on children.