Google settles for 170 million USD for violating children's privacy

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Don't be evil

 

 

Google has agreed to pay 170 million dollars to settle a lawsuit regarding their illegal collection and sale of children's data. 

They knowingly collected the data and allowed advertisers to specifically target those young children even though the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act doesn't allow them to collect data on anyone under 13 years of age. 
 

Quote

Google and YouTube knowingly and illegally monitored, tracked, and served targeted ads to young children just to keep advertising dollars rolling in," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement following the announcement. "These companies put children at risk and abused their power, which is why we are imposing major reforms to their practices and making them pay one of the largest settlements for a privacy matter in U.S. history."

 

Quote

YouTube marketed itself to Mattel and Hasbro as the "leader" in reaching children ages 6-11, the ruling found. Yet, in one instance, the company told an advertising company that it did not have users younger than 13 on its platform and therefore channels on its platform did not need to comply with COPPA.

 

Source : https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/youtube-to-pay-170-million-in-ftc-child-privacy-settlement.html

 

 

Attorney General James really shouldn't be touting this like a major victory just because it's "one of the largest settlements for a privacy matter in U.S. history".  $170M is chump change for such companies, they only start to pay attention once you start fining them billions.  They're probably laughing about how cheaply they got away with the whole thing.

Alphabet's shares went up 0.4% after the announcement, so that fine probably paid for itself.

[poochyena]

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

These companies put children at risk and abused their power

Can someone explain this line? I would think serving kids kid related ads would make them safer, rather than serving them random ads.

 

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

$170M is chump change for such companies

The costs add up. Don't act like this is the only lawsuit they have had to pay up.

 

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

Alphabet's shares went up 0.4% after the announcement

The entire stock market is up today. the Dow Jones Industrial Average is actually up higher than alphabet, so they performed below average today.

[Mihle]

2 hours ago, poochyena said:

Can someone explain this line? I would think serving kids kid related ads would make them safer, rather than serving them random ads..

I think it's more that kids is easier to influence than other people, and therefore people don't want ads aimed at them.

[Salv8 (sam)]

2 hours ago, poochyena said:

Can someone explain this line? I would think serving kids kid related ads would make them safer, rather than serving them random ads.

Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act prevents companies like Google from collecting any data from their account.

it's supposed to protect children from the dangers of a company collecting their data (e.g their habbits, hobbies, fav shows, etc, all VERY valuable to advertisers) to improve their services or to sell to others.

the COPPA does not allow this and google knowing broke it. kids were being served relevant ads. 

here in Australia the monetary settlement wouldn't sway our government, simply put our version of the COPPA is far more restrictive and the punshiment would of been worse than then a $170 million fine...

Just now, Mihle said:

I think it's more that kids is easier to influence than other people, and therefore people don't want ads aimed at them.

a child mind is extremely easy to influence. i know a dude who has a child that has a British accent, she got it from the various shows she had been watching online and on TV, keep in mind, shes 5.

there are various articles explaining why this happens and you should go and read them if you have the time.

[poochyena]

30 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I think it's more that kids is easier to influence than other people, and therefore people don't want ads aimed at them.

But they see ads either way, better to influence them to want to buy some childs toy than alcohol or guns.

20 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

it's supposed to protect children from the dangers of a company collecting their data

What is dangerous about collecting their data

[williamcll]

Now watch as every kids channel get demonitized.

[Salv8 (sam)]

8 hours ago, poochyena said:

What is dangerous about collecting their data

let me repeat myself:

9 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

(e.g their habbits, hobbies, fav shows, etc, all VERY valuable to advertisers)

i'll provide an extreme example to get my point across cause after this time i'm not explaining it word by word again.

lets imagine if ISIS made an ad to recruit kids into their organisation. (and before you say anything, yes i know this wouldn't be possible, it's called an extreme example for a reason)

so they use analytics to get their ads served to children, they can see what children are currently interested in, what their lives are like, where the live etc.

using this information they can create ads specifically designed for that target demographic.

now apart from the ISIS thing this is commonplace in the advertising business. 

the problem is kids cant tell this is advertising and take it in as everything else they also learn.

a worse case scenario is that it changes the kid so much that he/she is not like themselves anymore and may be scared for life!

 

the fact is this, kids are stupid, we need to control what the actual fuck they see, what happens to them in their early years changes them for life...

if advertisers had this power they wouldn't need to advertise to older people anymore because they would of already brain washed the younger gen into thinking that they should only use their products and no-one else's.

being a parent is hard (can't speak from personal experience, i just know it's hard) if you had no control what what your child saw they may become a monster in your eyes, something you never want to associate with. think of every parent that had a child that killed or did something so wrong that they could never look at them the same.

thats a parents worse nightmare, and right now, we need to ensure that this is enforced otherwise this will become reality. a horrible reality...

[sof006]

Not enough, needs to be more. Needs to be billions.

[Mihle]

12 hours ago, poochyena said:

But they see ads either way, better to influence them to want to buy some childs toy than alcohol or guns.

In my country, alcohol ads is Illegal too. Also there is no gun ads, I know it's different in US tho.

 

I think the people that made the laws against ads towards children think that it's harder for a child to understand ads aimed at adults or less likely to be influenced by them. If that's true or false in reality, I don't know, but that's probably what they think.

[The King of the Undead]

do this act thing to everyone else to.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Wow Cool, Spare change settlement from google, Lol that must've hurt them.

[Dedayog]

15 hours ago, poochyena said:

But they see ads either way, better to influence them to want to buy some childs toy than alcohol or guns.

What is dangerous about collecting their data

Your comment about $170mil not being chump change is true, but you forgot that Google most likely made many times that selling the data.  Net profit.

 

You either don't have kids or are deep in back woods Alabama where your kids don't have access to anything.  Companies prey on children, using social media and various other outlets to influence.  Hot new toys, fads, trends, even cigarettes and smoking are all highly profitable and can become a wildfire of profits all based on kids wanting it and a cascade of peer pressure, etc.

 

Basically, children shouldn't be manipulated and influenced, They don't have the ability to make rational decisions for the most part, and are protected by law against almost all things.  Of course we ignore those laws all the time, but they're there to protect them nonetheless.

[Blademaster91]

Not much for Google, but fining companies won't fix parents that don't keep track of what their kids are watching or doing online

[poochyena]

9 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

yes i know this wouldn't be possible

so.... then whats the problem. If the only bad thing you can imagine isn't possible, then it sounds safe.

9 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

the fact is this, kids are stupid, we need to control what the actual fuck they see

thats a great idea. Maybe we should track them to make sure they are only served relevant kid friendly ads.

9 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

if advertisers had this power they wouldn't need to advertise to older people anymore because they would of already brain washed the younger gen into thinking that they should only use their products and no-one else's.

This is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Advertising isn't brain washing, its advertising. Its to get people to know your product exists. Kids don't have money, so they are the worst demographic to advertise to, and they aren't going to pay attention to adult centric product ads since its not relevant to them.

3 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

but you forgot that Google most likely made many times that selling the data.  Net profit.

I didn't

3 hours ago, jstudrawa said:

Companies prey on children, using social media and various other outlets to influence.

Children don't have money.

[Dedayog]

4 minutes ago, poochyena said:

so.... then whats the problem. If the only bad thing you can imagine isn't possible, then it sounds safe.

thats a great idea. Maybe we should track them to make sure they are only served relevant kid friendly ads.

This is the stupidest thing I ever heard. Advertising isn't brain washing, its advertising. Its to get people to know your product exists. Kids don't have money, so they are the worst demographic to advertise to, and they aren't going to pay attention to adult centric product ads since its not relevant to them.

I didn't

Children don't have money.

You failed to mention it then in your argument, disingenuous.

 

Children don't have money?  Yes, you don't have kids.  When you do, come back and edit all your statements.

[poochyena]

13 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

You failed to mention it then in your argument, disingenuous.

Because I thought its obvious that one of the richest company in the world can afford a single ~$100 million fine

 

15 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

Children don't have money?

correct.

[mynameisjuan]

Hmmm....

 

Didn't seem as big as of deal with Nickelodeon and Cartoon network targeting kids in ads or cereal boxes with "exclusives" if little Jimmy fills out a form with name, DOB and address and drops it in the mailbox. Which mom has to sift through the offers later.

 

Kids have always been heavily targeted because how easy they are to manipulate. Take toy and game ads away an now watch them get ads for Busch and Trojan.

 

[Trik'Stari]

I will continue to say this:

 

Instead of fines against corporations, they deserve a permanent loss of patents and or copyrights (not all, but a number that is relatively justified in comparison with the crime/wrong-doing committed). Always beginning with whatever was most recently entered into government record.

 

Apple loses a litigation over their extremely anti-consumer practices? The punishment is that they lose the patent to the most recent device they patented. To be sold to the highest bidder, that cannot be in ANY WAY affiliated with Apple. And cannot license that patent back to Apple, etc. Meaning they cannot give an employee millions or billions of dollars to bid on the patent, and then turn around and "sell" it back to them for a few stock options or whatever.

 

Get that going, and watch these companies pull a complete fucking 180.

 

Imagine the stock hit if Apple lost the patent/copyright to the most recent iPhone. Imagine if EA lost the licensing to Star Wars, or hell, imagine if Disney lost ownership of Star Wars, over their licensing of the product to EA.

[mxk]

what a fucking joke, google has the money to just pay off the government and it won't impact them at all

[The King of the Undead]

13 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

I will continue to say this:

 

Instead of fines against corporations, they deserve a permanent loss of patents and or copyrights (not all, but a number that is relatively justified in comparison with the crime/wrong-doing committed). Always beginning with whatever was most recently entered into government record.

 

Apple loses a litigation over their extremely anti-consumer practices? The punishment is that they lose the patent to the most recent device they patented. To be sold to the highest bidder, that cannot be in ANY WAY affiliated with Apple. And cannot license that patent back to Apple, etc. Meaning they cannot give an employee millions or billions of dollars to bid on the patent, and then turn around and "sell" it back to them for a few stock options or whatever.

 

Get that going, and watch these companies pull a complete fucking 180.

 

Imagine the stock hit if Apple lost the patent/copyright to the most recent iPhone. Imagine if EA lost the licensing to Star Wars, or hell, imagine if Disney lost ownership of Star Wars, over their licensing of the product to EA.

imagine they did that to a employee like me. Who would sell it to the highest bidder. (Not apple)