GOOGL Alphabet Inc

By John D. McKinnon 

WASHINGTON -- Privacy advocates are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to remove all YouTube content directed at kids and impose tens of billions in fines against the video-streaming service run by Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit for alleged children's privacy violations.

The recommendations were made in a letter sent to the FTC Tuesday by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Center for Digital Democracy. Those groups filed a complaint last year against Google and YouTube over their privacy practices regarding children, which the FTC is investigating.

The core of the groups' complaint is that Google and YouTube improperly avoid federal requirements for obtaining parental consent before collecting children's personal information.

"Google claims that YouTube is not for children under thirteen, and therefore, no consent is required," the groups wrote on Tuesday. "This defense is outlandish given that YouTube is the number one online destination for kids."

Google didn't immediately provide comment. The FTC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The groups, aided by Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Public Representation, said the FTC should seek a consent decree that would require Google to destroy all its data collected from children under 13, stop collecting data from any users known or reasonably believed to be under 13 and remove all channels and content on YouTube directed at children.

YouTube could make such content available on a separate platform intended for children, such as the existing stand-alone YouTube Kids, as long as no data would be collected for commercial purposes.

The groups also are recommending civil penalties running into tens of billions of dollars, under the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

YouTube already has been considering some similar far-reaching changes to its platform after being put on the defensive over the issue.

Executives have been debating moving all children's content into the YouTube Kids app, to better protect young viewers from objectionable videos, The Wall Street Journal reported last week citing people briefed on the talks.

That would be a seismic shift, as children's videos are among the most popular on the YouTube platform and carry millions of dollars in advertising.

Some YouTube employees have been pushing for another significant modification. They are encouraging the company to switch off for children's programming a feature that automatically plays a new video after one has been completed, the people briefed said.

While that default setting -- known as YouTube's recommendation system -- has helped boost audience hours, it has also opened the company up to criticism that children and parents who have selected innocuous videos can then be transferred automatically to inappropriate fare.

The proposed changes are motivated in part by the continuing investigation by the FTC.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 25, 2019 12:20 ET (16:20 GMT)

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