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| The allegations against YouTube were made by privacy groups who said the platform had violated laws protecting children's privacy by gathering data on users under the age of 13 (AFP Photo/LIONEL BONAVENTURE) |
Washington (AFP) - Google will pay $150-200 million to settle allegations YouTube violated a children's privacy law while gathering data to better target its adverts, US media reports said Friday.
The US
Federal Trade Commission agreed the amount of the settlement against YouTube
parent Google, which if approved by the Justice Department would be the largest
settlement in a case involving children's privacy, the New York Times reported.
The
allegations against YouTube were made by privacy groups who said the platform
had violated laws protecting children's privacy by gathering data on users
under the age of 13 without obtaining permission from parents, Politico
reported.
The FTC is
expected to announce its decision on the settlement in September, the New York
Times said.
US
regulators have long argued Google fails to protect children from harmful
content and data collection on its YouTube platform.
Advocacy
group The Center for Digital Democracy said in a statement that the proposed
settlement would be "woefully low" given Google's size and revenue,
and called on the FTC to "enjoin Google from committing further
violations" of children's privacy law.
Google
remains the money-making engine for parent company Alphabet, with most of its
revenue coming from digital ads, which accounted for $116 billion of the $136
billion the Silicon Valley-based company took in last year.
In January,
France's CNIL data watchdog slapped Google with a record 50-million-euro fine
for failing to meet the EU's tough General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
which came into force early last year.
Google is
appealing the fine.
Fellow US
tech giant Facebook recently settled a record $5 billion fine with the US
Federal Trade Commission for misusing users' private data.
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