Parents Beware! Tech Giants Including Google Bypass Kid Privacy Norms

Reports flagged Google parent Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL for YouTube's advertising practices, alleging its potential to bypass the privacy of children watching children's videos, despite the company's assurances.

The federal privacy law mandates parental consent before collecting personal information from users under 13 to target them with ads — a commitment YouTube complied with, the New York Times reports.

Also Read: Roblox Shares Sink On Short Report Saying Gaming Company 'Has Facilitated More Child Abuse Than Any Public Company In History'

Now a children's activist group, Fairplay called out YouTube's privacy statements for exploiting Google's advertising placement tools to run a $10 ad campaign this month targeting different adult groups, exclusively on children's video channels.

The ads reached out 1,446 times on YouTube children's video channels.

Adalytics, the company that published the research, analyzed similar ad campaigns from several other media buyers on children's channels.

Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy, and two other nonprofit groups complained to the Federal Trade Commission about Google and YouTube's data and advertising practices on videos made for children.

Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy, and 21 other groups wrote to the FTC in 2018 to take action against Google and YouTube for improperly collecting data from children who watched children's videos.

In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission and the State of New York held the company guilty of illegally collecting personal information from children watching children's channels. 

Regulators said the company had profited from using children's data to target them with ads.

Google and YouTube agreed to pay a record $170 million to settle regulators' accusations.

Companies including Microsoft Corp MSFT, Amazon.com Inc AMZN, and ByteDance Ltd's TikTok faced FTC penalties for collecting data on children without parental consent.

Price Action: GOOG shares traded higher by 0.36% at $130.89 in the premarket on the last check Friday.