--- title: YouTube Ordered to Pay $170 Million Fine for Violating Your Kids' Privacy description: The company, which is owned by Google, used targeted ads to profit off of children younger than 13, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General allege. authors: - name: Alix Langone url: https://money.com/author/alix-langone/ at_money_since: 2018 articles: 187 covers: - Technology - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Pets - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes former_staff: true published: '2019-09-04T20:58:31.000Z' modified: '2020-07-24T06:45:08.000Z' section: Technology tags: - everyday money word_count: 395 canonical: https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![190904-YouTube-Fined-$170-Million](https://img.money.com/2019/09/gettyimages-949485654.jpg) YouTube got its parent company Google put in the time out chair on Wednesday. The tech giant was hit with a record-breaking $170 million fine to settle allegations from regulators that the video sharing site illegally collected children's data, according to reports in multiple media outlets, including [The Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/04/google-pay-million-settle-charges-it-violated-kids-privacy-law-youtube/) and **[The New York Times.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/technology/google-youtube-fine-ftc.html?action=click&module=Alert&pgtype=Homepage)** The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the New York Attorney General allege that YouTube has been using children’s data without their parents' consent and -- in what comes as a surprise to pretty much no one who's ever looked at the site -- making money off of that data via targeted advertising. The complaint alleges that Google and YouTube violated child privacy laws because they knew there were child-directed channels on the site and were aware they had users younger than 13. Of the $170 million civil penalty levied against the tech behemoth, $34 million will go to the New York AG and $136 million will go to the FTC, making it the largest-ever sum obtained by the FTC for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA states that websites orientated towards children must obtain parental consent to collect a child's personal information if the child is under 13 years of age, along with a notice about the site's information practices. The fine sends a more serious message to Silicon Valley than this year's earlier (and tiny) [$5.7 million fine for the social media video app TikTok](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/technology/ftc-tiktok-child-privacy-fine.html?module=inline), but it’s still a far cry from the $5 billion the FTC fined Facebook over privacy violations in July. Privacy experts say the amount [is merely a drop in the bucket](https://www.thedailybeast.com/youtube-to-pay-dollar170-million-fine-to-ftc-and-new-york-for-tracking-kids-and-harvesting-their-personal-data) for a massive corporation like Google. "YouTube touted its popularity with children to prospective corporate clients,” says Joe Simons, FTC chairman, in a statement, adding that there is "no excuse" for YouTube violations. In addition to the fine, regulators are ordering Google and YouTube to "develop, implement, and maintain a system that permits channel owners to identify their child-directed content on the YouTube platform," among other requirements related to following COPPA rules. In [a blog post](https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/09/an-update-on-kids.html) that went up Wednesday, YouTube addressed the matter, writing that it will start to "treat data from anyone watching children’s content on YouTube as coming from a child, regardless of the age of the user," and shut down certain features like comments and notifications. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Technology", "item": "https://money.com/technology/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Websites", "item": "https://money.com/websites/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "YouTube Ordered to Pay $170 Million Fine for Violating Your Kids' Privacy" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/", "name": "YouTube Ordered to Pay $170 Million Fine for Violating Your Kids' Privacy", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2019-09-04T20:58:31.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2020-07-24T06:45:08.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "YouTube Ordered to Pay $170 Million Fine for Violating Your Kids' Privacy", "articleSection": "Technology", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2019/09/gettyimages-949485654.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "190904-YouTube-Fined-$170-Million" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alix Langone", "url": "https://money.com/author/alix-langone/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/alix-langone/#author" } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2019-09-04T20:58:31.000Z", "description": "The company, which is owned by Google, used targeted ads to profit off of children younger than 13, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General allege.", "abstract": "The company, which is owned by Google, used targeted ads to profit off of children younger than 13, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General allege.", "@id": "https://money.com/youtube-ordered-to-pay-170-million-fine-for-violating-your-kids-privacy/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2020-07-24T06:45:08.000Z", "wordCount": 395, "keywords": [ "everyday money" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Technology", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Website", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website" ] } ] } ] } ```