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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.
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.