YouTube was accused of spying on millions of children
The Federal trade Commission, the US turned 20 groups of lawyers with a demand to investigate the activities of YouTube. In their opinion, a subsidiary of Google improperly collected information about children, according to CNN.
According to the authors, IT is a Corporation for several years broke the Law on the protection of children’s privacy online (COPPA). This document limits the collection of data on children under the age of 13. During this time, may have been violated rights more than 23 million young people.
Despite the fact that to register your own YouTube account, the user must confirm that he has reached the age of thirteen, video hosting available for viewing without logging in to your personal profile.
Also, according to lawyers, it is necessary to take into account that children can use to login to the website account of their parents.
According to polls of 2017, nearly half of American children under the age of 12 years have their own account on YouTube. This means that if you check they have entered a false year of birth (this is possible because of the absence of documentary verification on the site).
Google prohibits advertisers to target their ads to minors, however, the petitioners argue that the notice mechanisms that serve ads according to a “toy” or “baby.”
In the submitted claim contains the requirement to assess each case of violation in almost 41 and a half thousand dollars. If the request is granted, the total fine could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. “Google has got a considerable profit from the collection and use of personal information from children on YouTube. His illegal activity has continued over many years and affects tens of millions of American children”, — stated in the document.