The FTC announced on September 2 that the major media company Disney agreed to pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that Disney wrongly classified many of its videos uploaded to YouTube across multiple channels as “Not Made for Kids,” enabling the unlawful collection of children’s personal data.
The lawsuit was filed based on the belief that Disney violated the COPPA Rule, which requires companies to take steps to inform parents of what data is being collected on children under 13 and to secure parental consent. For videos labeled as not made for children, YouTube may track users and serve them targeted ads without obtaining parental consent, in violation of the COPPA Rule.
The FTC says that YouTube notified Disney in mid-2020 that it had reclassified hundreds of misclassified videos. Nevertheless, Disney continued to allegedly misclassify videos, which included “child-directed subject matter, visual content, and music from The Incredibles, Coco, Toy Story, Frozen, and Mickey Mouse.” It’s alleged that Disney also ran its own targeted ads on videos whose content was aimed at children, despite the videos not being classified as such.
Following the judge’s sign-off, Disney will now pay a $10 million civil penalty, and has agreed to:
- Comply with the COPPA Rule, including by notifying parents before collecting personal information from children under 13 and obtaining verifiable parental consent for collection and use of that data; and
- Establish and implement a program to review whether videos posted to YouTube should be designated as MFK (Made for Kids)—unless YouTube implements age assurance technologies that can determine the age, age range, or age category of all YouTube users or no longer allows content creators to label videos as MFK. “This forward-looking provision reflects and anticipates the growing use of age assurance technologies to protect kids online,” the FTC adds.
This lawsuit follows the FTC’s settlement with Genshin Impact publishers COGNOSPHERE LLC and COGNOSPHERE PTE. LTD. over similar violations of the COPPA Rule.
Source: FTC
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