Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have called for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into YouTube, a social media company owned by Google, for potential violations related to the tracking and targeting of children on their platforms. In a letter to the FTC, the senators emphasized the need for both the enforcement of existing laws, such as the FTC Act, and the passage of new legislation to protect the privacy of young people online and ban targeted advertising to kids and teens.
This bipartisan call for FTC scrutiny follows the release of a report from Adalytics, an ad quality and transparency platform, and an article from The New York Times highlighting the findings. The Adalytics report revealed that YouTube utilized “long-lasting cookies,” which enabled ad targeting and tracking on web browsers for viewers of YouTube videos explicitly labeled as “for kids.”
YouTube has strongly disputed the report’s claims, deeming them “deeply flawed and misleading.” The company explained that cookies are commonly used for fraud detection and frequency capping, both of which are allowed under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). YouTube maintained that there were no identified instances of policy violations outlined in the report.
Although the report did not accuse any parties of knowingly or intentionally harvesting data from children or violating COPPA or other laws, it raised concerns among senators who are already cautious about how YouTube and other tech companies handle children’s data. They are working to update existing laws accordingly.
Markey and Blackburn expressed their belief that YouTube and Google may have egregiously violated COPPA and its 2019 FTC consent decree, potentially impacting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children in the United States. As part of the 2019 settlement with the FTC, YouTube made commitments regarding data handling, data collection on kids’ content, and the cessation of personalized ads on such content.
Markey’s COPPA 2.0 proposal received bipartisan support and advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee in July. This proposal aims to update COPPA with new regulations, including the prohibition of targeted advertising to children. Although the proposal advanced out of the committee last session, it failed to secure a floor vote before the year’s end.
The FTC declined to comment on the matter.
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