YouTube under federal investigation
Sources: Alleged violations of kids’ privacy probed
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government is in the late stages of an investigation into YouTube for allegedly violating children’s privacy, according to four people familiar with the matter, a probe that threatens the company with a potential fine and already has prompted the tech giant to reevaluate some of its business practices.
The Federal Trade Commission launched its investigation after numerous complaints from consumer groups and privacy advocates, according to the four people, who requested anonymity because such probes are supposed to be confidential. The complaints contended that YouTube, which is owned by Google, failed to protect kids who used the streaming-video service and improperly collected their data in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, a 1998 law known as COPPA that forbids the tracking and targeting of users younger than age 13.
A hefty penalty against the company — including a settlement forcing it to change its practices to better protect children — could signal a new phase in the FTC’s enforcement of the child-privacy law, which many critics say has grown weak amid technology’s rapid changes over the past two decades. Some of the problems highlighted by the YouTube investigation are shared by many of the most popular online services, including social media sites, such as Instagram and Snapchat, according to consumer advocates. The companies say that their services are intended for adults and that they take action when they find users who are underage. But they still remain popular with children, especially preteens, according to surveys and other data, raising concerns that the companies’ efforts, and federal law, have not kept pace with the rapidly evolving online world.
FTC penalties, when they have been levied, often come after years of violations and rarely have been large enough to dent the profit margins of major technology companies. In February, the FTC issued its biggest penalty yet for breaking federal child-privacy rules — a $5.7 million settlement with the app now known as TikTok for violations that allegedly began in 2014.
“YouTube is a really highprofile target, and for obvious reasons, because all of our kids are on it,” said Marc Groman, a privacy lawyer who previously worked for the FTC and the White House. “But the issues on YouTube that we’re all grappling with are elsewhere and everywhere.”
Since its founding in 2005 — and especially after its purchase by Google for $1.65 billion the following year — YouTube has joined the internet’s most popular sites, generating massive advertising revenue while becoming an online video library for almost anyone with an online connection, almost anywhere in the world. That includes those offering do-it-yourself tips, original shows, music performances and, on the darker side, far-fetched conspiracies, disinformation and clips troublingly close to child pornography.
YouTube’s users upload 400 hours of new content to the platform each minute, the company has said.
As the FTC investigation of YouTube has progressed, company executives in recent months have accelerated internal discussions about broad changes to how the platform handles children’s videos, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans. That includes potential changes to its algorithm for recommending and queuing up videos for users, including kids, part of an ongoing effort at YouTube over the past year and a half to overhaul its software and policies to prevent abuse.
A spokeswoman for YouTube, Andrea Faville, declined to comment on the FTC probe. In a statement, she emphasized that not all discussions about product changes come to fruition.
“We consider lots of ideas for improving YouTube and some remain just that — ideas,” she said.
The FTC declined to comment, citing its policy against confirming or denying nonpublic investigations.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday that YouTube was considering moving all children’s content off the service into a separate app, YouTube Kids, to better protect younger viewers from problematic material — a change that would be difficult to implement because of the sheer volume of content on YouTube, and potentially could be costly to the company in lost advertising revenue. A person close to the company said that option was highly unlikely, but that other changes were on the table.
The internal conversations come after years of complaints by consumer advocates and independent researchers that YouTube had become a leading conduit for political disinformation, hate speech, conspiracy theories and content threatening the wellbeing of children. The prevalence of preteens and younger children on YouTube has been an open secret within the technology industry and repeatedly documented by polls even as the company insisted that the platform complied with COPPA.
A Pew Research Center poll last year found that even among kids 11 or younger, 81% had watched YouTube at least once and 34% did so regularly, according to their parents.
Some lawmakers, including COPPA’s original author, Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., have proposed a bill to expand its application to include online services, such as YouTube, that have demonstrably large numbers of children using them. COPPA now only applies to services that are directed primarily toward children or for which companies have “actual knowledge” of use by children, a narrow legal standard that has hindered enforcement, advocates say.
“An FTC investigation into YouTube’s treatment of children online is long overdue,” Markey said in a statement. “But we must do much more to ensure that our children are protected from online dangers known and unknown.”
The FTC has been investigating YouTube about its treatment of kids based on multiple complaints it received dating back to 2015, arguing that both YouTube and YouTube Kids violate federal laws, according to the people familiar with the investigation.