
Google, YouTube to Pay $170M Penalty over Collecting Kids' Personal Info - longdefeat
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757441886/google-youtube-to-pay-170-million-penalty-over-collecting-kids-personal-info
======
c3534l
To be clear, Google isn't accused of intentionally tracking children in
defiance of privacy laws, they're accused of not erring hard enough on the
side of "this is a child" when guessing the age of a user they don't know the
age of. This sounds like a genuine grey area that YouTube was on the wrong
side of. Doesn't mean they were right, but everyone's acting like this is
flagrant disregard of the law when in fact it is an edge case that didn't yet
have a clear standard.

~~~
newguy1234
Google/youtube still won't be able to do anything because kids are smart.
They'll just make accounts saying they're 22 years old. It reminds me of the
times when I was like 14 and started watching pornography. To say the least,
you quickly learn to just click the "yes, I am 18+ years old". That's the
reality. If YT/google were to really enforce it they would make all YT/google
accounts require ID submission for commenting/uploading etc.

~~~
43920
Google already has a minimum age of 13 to create an account (the maximum age
before COPPA no longer applies). The issue here is that if a child didn't sign
in or used an account where they claimed to be older, they would still have
their information collected - the FTC is arguing that Google should have
disabled tracking on all videos targeted towards children, even when they
didn't know the age of the person watching.

~~~
ehsankia
So basically all kid content creators are going to be hit hard once this goes
into effect, and we'll get another wave of backlash about "Youtube is killing
our channel"

The trickier part is "all age" content. Even something like Minecraft, which
at the surface is aimed at kids, I know many adults who watch and play the
game... Are all Minecraft streamers screwed?

~~~
baroffoos
I don't see anything saying they can't play ads? They can even target them
without having to collect any info. If you are watching a kids video its
pretty obvious an advert about toys or kids games would be relevant.

~~~
ehsankia
That's true, it will still play ads, but obviously non-targeted ads are not as
lucrative (an adult watching a Minecraft video doesn't care about toys),
therefore, there will still be a non-negligible hit in revenue. If the
difference was negligible, why would Google spend so much time developing
targeted ads?

~~~
baroffoos
The adult watching kids videos is something I did not consider. Target ads are
useful for adults because their wants and needs are far more diverse. Only a
fraction of adults are interested in buying a circular saw so targeted ads are
needed but for kids you can put a pretty safe bet on the fact that a lego
advert on a kids show will hit the correct audience pretty spot on.

------
3131s
The real problem is much worse than just data collection. The children's
content on Youtube is the most vacuous garbage in existence and young children
have wasted billions of hours watching it on autoplay.

~~~
thaumasiotes
This differs in no way, except for the name "YouTube", from the objection to
children watching television that goes back several decades.

~~~
gregmac
The content on YouTube _absolutely_ differs from the content on regular
television.

Most children's television content has _some_ value: a lesson, moral or at
least an actual _story_.

Others have mentioned the horrifying inappropriate content, but even ignoring
that, there is a mind-boggling amount of content on YouTube that is really
devoid of value (at least in terms of what I want my kids watching):

* Nursery rhymes -- which is not so bad, but it just keeps going forever

* People (often adults) dressed up as children's story characters, just goofing around

* People (not always kids) literally just playing with toys

* People (not always kids) doing some mind-numbing repetitive task (for 10's of minutes) like opening kinder eggs, molding play doh or pouring glitter on things

~~~
beart
Is there any evidence that this is different, better or worse, than
traditional television?

~~~
xmprt
Content farms thrive by children's content on YouTube. Something similar could
never exist on other curated platforms like TV just as a matter of scale. A
content farm can put out 100 ten minute videos of the same type just by
swapping out some assets and keywords. At least one of those will get somewhat
popular. This is even more devious with MCNs where multiple channels group up
but revenue goes to a single entity. If YouTube flags a single channel, it
doesn't hurt the entire MCN so you can get around the spam filters that
YouTube almost certainly has in place.

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Pxtl
It seems like Youtube Kids is an abomination on every level. Between Elsagate,
privacy violations, and the generally pathetic unboxing-oriented nature of its
mainstay content, it's a revolting offering for children.

Of all the Google products that get deprecated or killed, this is the one I
wish they'd amputate.

~~~
LargeWu
I think it's overblown. My kid watches YTK sometimes, and he watches mostly
people playing with Lego and hotwheels cars, and animal videos. I've never
actually seen any of that sort of questionable content.

~~~
mox1
Yea, look a little closer. A lot of that stuff they are playing with is
sponsored content. The toy maker is paying for the kid to play with that toy.

Further, no matter what you kid starts watching, the recommendation algorithms
always head you down the path to this content.

Start with sesame street or some known A+ content, 5 mins later its "learn
colors with Mattel car" x 1000.

You really need to whitelist things, to avoid the "Billys toy review" and the
10,000 clones.

~~~
sdenton4
"A lot of that stuff they are playing with is sponsored content. The toy maker
is paying for the kid to play with that toy."

I think this ship sailed like eighty years ago... Seriously just about every
successful kids show from my youth - with the possible partial exception of
Sesame Street - were thinly disguised toy advertisements.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
> I think this ship sailed like eighty years ago... Seriously just about every
> successful kids show from my youth - with the possible partial exception of
> Sesame Street - were thinly disguised toy advertisements.

I grew up on Arthur, Mr Rogers, and Sesame Street. It’s certainly possible to
have quality noncommercial children’s programming.

~~~
sdenton4
It absolutely is... but clutching pearls about toy advertisements at this
point in history doesn't really add to the conversation.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
There are few problems in childrens TV you _can 't_ attribute to advertising.
It's absolutely relevant.

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porpoisemonkey
I spent a few minutes of DuckDuckGo'ing but couldn't find anything... does
anyone know if there's a way to see how/if these fines are actually being
paid?

UPDATE: Looks like most fines are paid to the US Treasury. [1][2]

There seems to be some info on this page, but it appears to be only for
sanctions violations (OFAC): [https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/sanctions/CivPen/Pa...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-
center/sanctions/CivPen/Pages/civpen-index2.aspx)

[1] [https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/11/05/good-question-
wher...](https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2015/11/05/good-question-where-does-
money-from-government-fines-go/)

[2] [https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-
govern...](https://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-government-
fines-companies-who-gets-cash-3189724.php)

~~~
satya71
The fine is also tax-deductible.

~~~
krustyburger
Which is especially irksome because Alphabet pays such a low rate already.

~~~
akavi
If Alphabet pays a low rate, then the benefit of a tax deduction's reduced, so
I'm not sure I understand the "especially" here.

~~~
FussyZeus
Because penalties for bad behavior shouldn't come out of your tax burden? I
dunno if that's what GP meant but it's certainly horrendously unethical enough
for me.

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kache_
Just a slap on the wrist in the grand scheme of things, considering how large
the children's ad market is

>YouTube said that, in a about four months, it will begin treating data "from
anyone watching children's content on YouTube as coming from a child,
regardless of the age of the user" and will stop serving personalized ads on
this content and end comments and notifications on it.

I wonder if spoofing your identity as a child will become a viable anti
tracking strategy

~~~
kalleboo
Oh boy I'm looking forward to hearing about random YouTubers' content getting
flagged as children's content and losing a further chunk of their revenue...

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luxuryballs
Where does this money even go? If not to the victims then it’s just a fine,
which is just another way of saying a cost of doing business.

~~~
dmix
What you're talking about is called
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice)

It's an idea that's been around for a long time and one could argue it's
growing in popularity as a concept. But it's not very popular in the legal
world yet.

Your crimes are against the state in most cases, which is where the fines will
go.

------
chasing
> YouTube earned millions of dollars by then using this information to target
> ads to the children, according to the complaint.

How many millions?

Because if it's $500m then I'm going to pissed off because Google's just going
to consider the fine a cost of doing business and continue about their merry
way.

But if they only made, like, $2m from this information, then the fine seems
like a legitimate tool to stop this sort of shitty behavior.

~~~
colpabar
I tend to think that it'll still be considered a cost of doing business.
They'll just figure out another way to do what they want and deal with the
consequences if needed.

~~~
EpicEng
If they continually lose money on such things then it's a good deterrent. Big
IF there.

------
dang
Discussed a few days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20844346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20844346)

------
reaperducer
I wonder what percentage of $170M is what Google spends on employee coffee
each year. 90%? 95%?

Google has $170M in petty cash. This is not a fine. It's not even an
inconvenience.

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xvector
The ability to indoctrinate the children of the future is worth magnitudes
more than this measly penalty.

------
flycaliguy
This is going to reflect back very poorly when they face their shareholders
next quarter.

~~~
colpabar
Why?

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patientplatypus
So if experience has taught me anything, this just means that they made more
than $170M on this. Cost of doing business.

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imvetri
Man, whats the point of paying penalty after causing damage?

They already brainwashed us ,but, put bandaid for cancer?

How does it make it right ?

------
unsined
$350M worth of data __

------
imdsm
Pays it to whom?

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spodek
Their meetings must be like Phillip Morris or whatever it's called now:

"This advertising method work great! What other markets can we apply it to?"

"There is this a market it works even better on, and keeps them coming back
for decades."

"Decades? Great! Let's do it."

"Well, that market is kids. Are you sure we should?"

"Hmm... didn't think of that. Well, too late to stop now. Besides, the
government set up rules that when you do it, you just pay a fine. It's like a
toll road. We'll follow their rules and everything will be fine."

"It's decided then. Project Kids is on."

When some people in Google saw the temptation for such outcomes, they proposed
publicly committing to avoid being evil. When push came to shove, they backed
down on the public commitment.

With each situation, they can choose to return to their public commitment or
what they're doing now.

They seem to pick this option many times and the public commitment keeps
getting relegated to more minor places. Last I heard "Don't be evil" was
buried in an HR document.

The shareholders are happy, though, right?

~~~
ehsankia
This comment is very disingenuous and misleading. Youtube Kids, the real
product targeted at kids, does not collect data or show personalized ads. From
my understanding, this lawsuit is about collecting data on kid videos on
Youtube Main, which technically you need to be 13 years old to have an account
for in the first place.

I guess the argument here was that the parents let their kids watch on their
account, and since the video is _clearly_ for kids, Youtube should've not
collected data on it because obviously adults wouldn't be watching this video.
Seems a bit of a stretch.

~~~
degenerate
How is it a bit of a stretch? If I setup a table outside an elementary school
with a colorful sign that says "FREE RAINBOW SPRINKLE BROWNIES" that are
unknowningly laced with drugs, and the parents get upset that I did this, I
can just say the free brownies were not intended for children?

Youtube knows kids are watching videos. The only thing they don't know is, are
the parents present. They could implement a captcha between videos the
majority of kids would fail ("What is 25-11?" / "What is the engine of a train
called?") but they chose not to do anything like that.

~~~
ehsankia
You can assume that some, and maybe most of the people watching certain videos
are kids, but there's no way to know for sure since the account itself is for
an adult. Just like on a porn site, you need to agree that you are an adult,
but realistically a lot of non-adults probably are watching too. The question
is, if in the user agreement you agreed that you are above 13, but then you
aren't, is that the websites fault?

Now it's up to Google to 1. figure out which videos (uploaded by others) are
for kids, and 2. automatically assume everyone watching said videos are kids.
Both of those steps are rough approximations. The better solution is to stick
to the EULA and have kids actually use Youtube Kids, instead of "guessing"
what videos and users are.

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benologist
> I wonder if spoofing your identity as a child will become a viable anti
> tracking strategy

That's a great idea.

Along that line, I've been wondering lately what are the ramifications for
telling dipshit websites I'm European so they must delete my data if I'm not?

~~~
bvda
I've used a similar trick to pretend I was 18+ on certain websites in the
past, have never had any issues with it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think every teenager on the Internet routinely does that.

~~~
dmix
And every Canadian learns to press the I'm from the US button on every website
(see: car sites) if they want to see the better website and aren't actually
shopping.

It's gotten better for Canadians as the average quality of sites has improved,
but it was consistently designs from a prior era and 1/10th the content.

~~~
jkeuhlen
As someone from the US, I've never heard about this before. Could you explain
what that is? Why is there a "I'm from the US button" on sites?

~~~
mch82
Companies that operate in multiple regions sometimes use these buttons to make
language-specific or region-specific content available. For example, some cars
may only be available in some regions or may have different branding. Another
example is how the Apple Store has region-specific editions. Also Netflix
filters the library by region.

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cybersnowflake
Seems a bit backward to me. Why should we care so much more about kid's
privacy than adult privacy? Are you really more concerned that people know
about your Barney the Magical Dinosaur addiction at 8 than your sordid affair
at 32? Would you much rather keep secret that you walked back and forth from
kindergarten everyday than your employers confidential design files?

Adults and teens have secrets, kids relatively speaking for the most part
don't, at least not ones worth protecting through strenuous tech laws. Okay
okay, I get that we don't want them vulnerable to be manipulated into stealing
their parents money. And Google is as always scrum. But the general laser
focus on kids when we should be concentrating on everybody seems just like
another think of the children hysteria.

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Trias11
Just a regular tipping of government out of some pocket change to keep doing
things.

------
timboslice
Google doesn't care. [https://brave.com/google-gdpr-
workaround/](https://brave.com/google-gdpr-workaround/)

~~~
colpabar
I don't see how anyone could come to any other conclusion. It feels like every
day we find out about yet another tech company finding a new way to extract
more of our personal data. At this point, the only appropriate response in my
opinion is to ask: are we mad enough to do anything about this yet?

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beaconfield
_grumpy cat face_ good

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nkkollaw
Shouldn't the fine be larger than how much they make, to deter them from doing
the same thing in the future?

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josteink
That’s funny. The last few weeks google has been trying to push me into
downloading/using YouTube kids for a “safe” experience.

Basically my response has been “hell no!”, since IME the only safe YouTube
experience for kids is _no_ YouTube experience at all.

Turns out kids get tracked on YouTube too. Who would have thought, eh?

So yeah. The answer is still no. Stop asking, Google.

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nojvek
170M fine for a company that makes ~10B of earnings and 30B of revenue per
quarter. That's like someone making 100k per year and only having to pay 50
cents in fine. Even parking fines are a much more steeper in % for average
joe.

A fine of anything less than a billion is like breeze hitting Google's face.
You want to slap them, make that stock hurt.

