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YouTube Is Illegally Collecting Data From Children, Say Advocacy Groups (gizmodo.com)
Nearly two-dozen privacy and children's advocacy groups have filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint against YouTube, alleging the platform of illegally collecting data from children. From a report: The groups, led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), allege YouTube is violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting data from children under 13 without parents' permission.
"It's just fundamentally unfair," Josh Golin, executive director of the CCFC, told Gizmodo, "to use Google's powerful behavioral targeting on a child that doesn't yet understand what's going on." COPPA requires platforms "give parents notice of its data collection practices, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting the data." But, as Golin argues, YouTube violates COPPA because it doesn't differentiate between videos marketed to children and the rest of the site.
"It's just fundamentally unfair," Josh Golin, executive director of the CCFC, told Gizmodo, "to use Google's powerful behavioral targeting on a child that doesn't yet understand what's going on." COPPA requires platforms "give parents notice of its data collection practices, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting the data." But, as Golin argues, YouTube violates COPPA because it doesn't differentiate between videos marketed to children and the rest of the site.
I am 13. Judging from the fact that all the ads I ever see are for drug treatment centers and "learn to code" packages, I think Slashdot may be collecting my data.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Netflix is collecting more information from minors. You should be more scared there.
youtube require a Credit Card for access in 3...2.... That seems to be the solution and a terrible solution at that.
"It's just fundamentally unfair,"
Google is a cunt, but life is not fair. If these parents have a problem, they should parent.
COPPA requires platforms "give parents notice of its data collection practices, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting the data."
Naw it doesn't. COPPA only regulates collection, use, and/or disclosure of the personal information from and about children on the Internet.
So collecting data that isn't the child's own personal info is not subject to COPPA or the FTC... Behavioral ad targetting may say things like "Your device/browser session 48592589239520 has recently visited Webpage14262362,Webpage211,Video30048960007,Video49623400057, and Video265352978917, therefore... we predict Advert123467 might be a good one to show. And that's NOT based on collecting any personal information."
"It's just fundamentally unfair," Josh Golin, executive director of the CCFC, told Gizmodo, "to use Google's powerful behavioral targeting on a child that doesn't yet understand what's going on."
I don't think even the average adult, including probably Josh Golin understand What's REALLY going on. Only Google knows exactly how they're targeting ads. There's no "fairness" deserved or necessary here --- they'll simply observe viewing patterns and use it to show the most effective ads.
My nephew watched 1 (one) toy review video on my youtube client.
Next time I fired it up literally every single recommendation was for toy reviews, about 50% of them from a single channel.
Months of TED talks, PBS space time and boring hour long lectures on late bronze age collapse had been obliterated in under 5 minutes.
My conclusion is that Youtube knows which side their bread is buttered on, an it isn't the side of 30-somethings with disposable income and a penchant for impulse buying expensive gadgets.
The group isn't saying that YouTube is intentionally targeting children. The group is saying that like all videos, YouTube collects data and targets ads towards content regardless if the content is more geared towards children or adults. Unless YouTube screens every single video for content, it would be hard to know if a video is indeed for children. Some creators like The Disney Channel will definitely be creating content for children but for others it's not clear. The second part which is more nuanced is that YouTube requires a minimum age of 13 for the site, but that requires a user account to know whether the user is at least 13. Many people don't bother signing into accounts to use YouTube so YouTube will never know.
YouTube requires users be at least 13 years old when joining the site, and makes clear its ad policies that it bars collecting data from children under 13. The CCFC complaint, however, notes that this age requirement only applies to users creating an account. Signed out, users of any age can watch videos (thus, potentially have their data collected) without any age check. As Golin tells Gizmodo, the FTC will ultimately decide whether to fine YouTube and, crucially, for how much.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
All this shiny, neato, star-struck internet-as-a-service shit finally caught up to the lot of people who now want to be presumably caught off guard and ass hurt because of data collection? Just stop all of this, from Facebook to Google and everyone else in between or at the frays.
I agree with the majority of first posters on here (and a parent of myself): Be a parent, not the service/gadget doing your parenting. Most breathing-and-should-be-breeding assholes I see pushing out kids didn't have a problem coughing up their cell phone to shut their kid up to watch a copyrighted show on Youtube in Walmart, but now your kid got older, less needy, has a mind of their own, starting to think for themselves, and now it's Google's problem and you want them to do something about it because you just can't control anything? Sounds like we all built a digital addiction and now how to we possibly turn it off?
All parents need to educate their kids in all of this and just how you prepare them for other future decisions in their life, they also need to know if all of that (e.g. social media and the internet of today) you let them is justified or not and to what level?
Won't somebody please thinking of the children?
Anyone know of a script/extension to random/exchange browser fingerprint and cookies with other users? Poison the well.
My kid keeps watching the same crap and youtube keeps feeding it. Maybe a smart cookie can setup a site to sell youtube profiles for whatever the user wants. You could have a starting point or a weekly update of cookies/ID args.
She's baned from youtube untill she is willing to search and watch other things. Too much minecraft videos. Oh yeah she has already watched all the TEDX stuff years ago.
I am shocked, shocked I say... that people didn't already know this.
No, seriously... why is this at all surprising to anyone?
of behavioral targeting on an adult that doesn't understand what's going on?
From what I've seen, it seems like at least half of all the 'content' on YouTube is "Look at me, look at meeeeeeeee!!!!!1!" sort of junk. Framing it like that, it's no wonder I've never spent more than maybe 20 minutes there in the last 10 years.
But, as Golin argues, YouTube violates COPPA because it doesn't differentiate between videos marketed to children and the rest of the site.
This says that it is ok (doesn't violate COPPA) if YouTube collects data about children who watch videos marketed towards "not children". "X violates Y because Z" implies that "not Z" mean X does not violate Y. Causal effect.
And that leaves the amazing question, how does YouTube know what age level a video submitter is targeting?
Google knows that their bread is buttered by "30-somethings with disposable income and a penchant for impulse buying expensive gadgets" to shut up their whining little children. TED talks don't bring much ad revenue. Toy reviews certainly do.
...don't be evil. YouTube's motto: "meh."
Think Of The Children
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
Iâ(TM)d love for someone to hack some sites to display ads (and wanted ads) for handjobs, heroin, and ISIS recruitment. Watch Googleâ(TM)s stock crash like a brick. Just please let me know before you do it so I can buy a shitload of puts.
Iâ(TM)m going to look into buying a small island at that point.