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Google To Pay Out $150-200 Million Over YouTube Privacy Claims

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Google will pay $150-200 million to settle allegations against YouTube. The video-streaming branch of the company violated a children’s privacy law while gathering data to better target its adverts. A number of media houses, including Politico and The New York Times made these reports on Friday, 30th August 2019.

 

The US Federal Trade Commission agreed on the amount of the settlement against YouTube parent Google. If approved by the Justice Department, it would be the largest settlement in a case involving children’s privacy.

 

Privacy groups made these allegations against YouTube. They said the platform had violated laws protecting children’s privacy by gathering data on users under the age of 13 without obtaining permission from parents.

 

The FTC will announce its decision on the settlement in September, the New York Times said.

 

US regulators have long argued Google fails to protect children from harmful content and data collection on its YouTube platform.

 

Advocacy group The Center for Digital Democracy spoke about this in a statement. The group said that the proposed settlement would be “woefully low” given Google’s size and revenue. It also called on the FTC to “enjoin Google from committing further violations” of children’s privacy law.

 

Google remains the money-making engine for parent company Alphabet, with most of its revenue coming from digital ads, which accounted for $116 billion of the $136 billion the Silicon Valley-based company took in last year.

 

In January, France’s CNIL data watchdog slapped Google with a record 50-million-euro fine for failing to meet the EU’s tough General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force early last year.

 

Google is appealing the fine.

 

Meanwhile, fellow US tech giant Facebook recently settled a record $5 billion fine with the US Federal Trade Commission for misusing users’ private data.

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