YouTube to Pay Record Fine in Children’s Privacy Case

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. A record fine in a children's privacy case, YouTube will pay you one hundred seventy million dollar fine and limit ads on kids videos in order to settle claims that the company collected children's personal data without their parents consent, violating children's privacy laws. Joining me is Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech

Law Institute and professor at Santa Clara University Law School. So, Eric, this fine is the largest the FTC has leveled against Google, but it pales in comparison to the five billion dollar fine the FTC imposed against Facebook this year, and two FTC commissioners thought it wasn't enough. What's your take is that despite the fact that Google and Facebook makes so much money, the FTC is really breaking some new ground here.

The size of the find that the FTC is imposing dwarfs anything that anyone's ever been able to get from Google for privacy violation. So I think that the FTC should be pretty pleased with itself that it's made as much progress as it has. Let's talk about the compliance part of the settlement, which may hamper YouTube's ability to

sell ads. What did YouTube agree to do? Well, one of other things they agreed to basically try to find automatically what channels are directed towards children, using algorithms and machine learning to do so. And from my prostructive, that's a really unprecedented move. Um, we haven't historically seen internet company is required to prospectively look for a material that's directed towards children. So this is a pretty major development, both from a regular air standpoint as well as from

a machine learning and algorithm standpoint. Will it work? Will they be able to find the content? Well, that's a really good question, um, And that's a question that we probably ought to have a checkpoint on in a few years and revisit. We know that machine learning is getting pretty good, but really trying to reduce what's going to appeal to children it doesn't strike me as the easiest

type of thing to train an algorithm to do. And what about the ads that YouTube would be selling in connection with children's programming, will it still be able to target children and their practices. Well, one other thing that's required to flush all the data that has gathered that the FTC believes is ill gotten, So that's going to hamper its ability to use the legacy data and is

prohibited from continue to do that in the future. Google and other tech giants, as we've discussed before, have faced these fines over practices also involving children, and Google's under agreement with the FTC that it was fined in for violating.

So how much can we trust in this particular agreement. Well, that's an interesting question because on the one hand, there's good reason to believe that there are other privacy violations Google is committed, and really there's no there's no limit to where our imagination could take us with the crazy

things that Google might be doing. On the other hand, this is an example that between the FTCs find of Facebook and the fine here of Google, that the FTC is paying attention to these questions and they are our champions as consumers. So on the one hand, I'm nervous about all the crazy things that could be taking place. On the other hand, I'm comforted that we know that the FTC is paying attention instigation. Is this an indication of the growing pressure that big tech may face in

its practices with miners? Unquestionably, there's a lot of interest in how in our companies are interacting with miners, and that's a global phenomenon. Everyone is concerned about the impact of technology on miners. I don't think that the FTC

is in a unique position that way. I think that they are also interested in but they are given this special authority by Congress under the law that the FTC enforced here, and so I think that the FTC feels a responsibility to be proactively looking for ways to protect children online. So I do see this as part of a larger trend. But I don't think that this particular settlement is anything unusual. This is what the FTC has been asked to do and is doing. And what about

practices of Facebook and Amazon that have been critiqued. Yeah, I don't have any unique insights about that, but I do think that it is time to ask some of those questions. Are there things that are hurting kids that we need to be protecting. Amazon is in a slightly different position because in theory, in order to be making acquisitions on Amazon, you need a credit card, which kids ordinarily aren't supposed to have, although increasingly they probably are.

But certainly Facebook has tried in the past to screen out underage users. They in fact did a deal a kay to Go that was designed to keep the under thirteen users from accessing the service. The reality of courses that we know that they are underage users on Facebook, and so because of that generalized knowledge that Facebook has, there's some risks that they're going to have to do more to keep the kids off and keep any remaining

kids safe. The big question that I've been thinking about as we've discussed this is can anything work if the parents aren't involved in policing their children. I don't even know what that means anymore. To be honest with you, Um, you know what they do on the internet, And so I have kids. My children are seventeen and fourteen, so there's a really perfect age for me to answer this question.

On the one hand, I am nervous about where they're going online if they understand the consequences of that, and unquestionably with my conversation with them, I've seen some examples where that's not the case. However, I also want them to have some freedom. It's their time to explore and to grow and to make choices, some of which won't be great as part of their learning process. I'm really started as apparent about what to do. I know I need to be evolved with what they do, but but

I can't be too involved. And that's a tough balance of strike it is. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Eric. That's Eric Goldman. He's director of the High Tech Law Institute and a professor at Santa Clara University Law School. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg