Google reached a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the New York Attorney General’s office in connection with the allegations that YouTube, its video-sharing platform violated children’s privacy laws.
On Wednesday, the FTC announced that Google and YouTube agreed to pay $170 million to settle the complaint. The consumer watchdog will received $136 million while New York State will get $34 million from the settlement.
According to the FTC, the settlement was the largest amount imposed against a company that violated the Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) since Congress enacted the law in 1998.
In the lawsuit, the FTC and New York Attorney General Letitia James argued that YouTube violated COPPA by collecting the personal information of children without their parent’s consent. Google is also accountable for the wrongdoing of its subsidiary, which generated millions of dollars in profits by delivering targeted ads to the viewers of child-directed channels.
