Critics push FTC to get tough on YouTube
Consumer advocates are pushing for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to come down hard on YouTube’s handling of children’s privacy as regulators approach a potential settlement with the video-sharing site.
The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) released a letter on Monday they sent to the FTC last week, urging the commission to force YouTube to separate children’s videos from the rest of the platform in order to crack down on illegal data collection on younger viewers.
Jeffrey Chester, CDD’s executive director, told The Hill that he became “alarmed” when FTC commissioners asked about a potential remedy that would allow YouTube content creators to simply flag content on their platform that is directed at children in order to make sure advertisers comply with federal children’s privacy laws.
That approach is not enough for critics of YouTube and its parent Google, who want the company to shoulder the responsibility for protecting children’s privacy on the platform.
“It really did sound like they potentially would support a proposal that could take the responsibility ultimately away from Google and place that burden on programmers,” Chester said.
“What I said was if the commission cannot enforce the one privacy law it has responsibility for it has no business [being] given even more power by Congress to protect the rest of us,” he added, referring to the role the FTC would play in any potential privacy legislation that lawmakers draft. “If it can’t protect children it should not be empowered by Congress to protect everyone else.”
The issue was raised during a meeting with FTC Chairman Joseph Simons and Commissioner Noah Phillips, two of the three Republicans who make up a majority of the commission.
Bloomberg first reported on Monday that FTC commissioners had floated a potential settlement that would allow YouTube’s content makers to disable ads on children’s videos.
A spokeswoman for the FTC said that the agency had received the letter but declined to comment.
The big picture: YouTube’s practices have received increased scrutiny from both sides of the aisle over whether the company is doing enough to protect children online from a wide array of threats, including exploitation. YouTube’s massive scale and Google’s pervasive ad networks have made it challenging for the company to navigate issues around children’s videos and to comply with the children’s privacy law. The company is not alone.
