Lawmakers send letter to violating COPPA”

USA - Two lawmakers sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday, asking the company to provide information on how its subsidiary YouTube collects data on child users.

Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska, said in their letter that YouTube’s data collection practices “may not be in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998,” or COPPA, a federal law regulating user data collection from sites with users under 13 years old.

The representatives sent the letter after a coalition of 23 child advocacy, privacy and consumer groups filed a complaint in April asking the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate YouTube for allegedly violating children’s online privacy laws. The complaint said YouTube is violating COPPA because it collects data on child viewers younger than 13, such as their location or what device they’re using, without obtaining parental consent beforehand. This information is then sold to advertising services to create targeted ads, the complaint alleged.

YouTube’s terms of service technically forbid anyone under 13 from using the platform, but kids can bypass the age restriction by claiming to be older when they make an account or by using an older person’s account, the complaint noted. The FTC complaint also alleged that Google knows children are using YouTube, and that the platform has plenty of content catered to children.

In their letter to Pichai, Cicilline and Fortenberry ask that Google respond to questions such as whether children’s programs on YouTube are marked to prevent data collection, and whether any data that may be collected is used for targeted ads. They also ask why there isn’t an age gate to prevent underage users from accessing videos