Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A 2019 class-action suit against Google and YouTube was settled for $30 million.
- The suit accused Google and YouTube of collecting identifying information about minors without parental consent.
- Affected users are now able to file claims to potentially receive a portion of the $30 million settlement.
Kids watch a lot of YouTube. Google’s keenly aware of that: It offers a version of the YouTube app that’s explicitly made for children’s content in YouTube Kids, and earlier this year, rolled out a controversial AI-based age estimation system to automatically flag accounts that may be used by minors.
These measures are meant in part to help Google avoid legal trouble — like a 2019 class-action suit filed in California accusing Google and YouTube of violating privacy laws by collecting information about minors for the purposes of advertising. The suit was eventually settled for a sum of $30 million, and now, according to Top Class Actions, affected users are able to submit claims to get a cut of that settlement.
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The suit (PDF) this settlement comes out of charges that Google and the owners of popular YouTube channels “baited vulnerable children using cartoons, nursery rhymes, and other child-directed content” in order to collect identifying data about those children in service of Google’s advertising business. This, the suit explains, was in violation of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits online service providers from collecting personal data about children under the age of 13 without parental consent.
The settlement is open to people who were under the age of 13 and watched content ostensibly made for children on YouTube between July 1, 2013 and April 1, 2020. That would put eligible claimants in the range of 18 to 25 years old today. If you’re a member of that group, you can submit a claim before January 21, 2026 here.
In addition to this settlement, Google agreed in 2019 to pay $170 million in civil penalties for its COPPA violations.
Eligible class members will receive a cash payment, but the amount will depend on the number of claimants the $30 million settlement is split between. The suit says “tens of millions” of children were affected by Google’s practices, and so individual payouts will likely be small.
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