YouTube to pay up to $170M for illegally collecting children’s data and profiting from it

$170 million dollars… that’s the fine Google is coughing up for illegally collecting children’s data on YouTube and profiting from it.

Let me start out by saying that $170 million is a lot, but not enough to stop a tech giant like Google to stop. It does not punish Google adequately and definitely does not deter Google or any other company from future violations. If regulators fail to take a tougher stand to protect children’s privacy, the practices of social media companies will not change. It sends the signal that you in fact can break a privacy law and get away.

YouTube’s fine comes just a month after the FTC settled a record $5 billion fine against Facebook. But in both cases, the FTC didn’t go far enough. The company has reaped huge profits by ignoring federal children’s privacy law and engaging in illegal data collection and targeted marketing.

Children are among the most avid viewers of YouTube. Yet YouTube has not policed content intended for and featuring them. In February, a video documenting how pedophiles used the comments on videos of children to guide other predators went viral on YouTube.

Any product that is "free" to the consumer is the product being sold to another company. People should have figured this out by now. Shakes head.. maybe I’m a crazy new mom, but would love to hear your thoughts below…