Google would have settled with the FTC about the laws on the protection of the privacy of children

The Federal Trade Commission is reported to have finalized an agreement with Google after an investigation revealed that YouTube was violating laws protecting children's privacy.

The investigation revealed that YouTube had collected data from children under the age of 13 – a violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

The Washington Post report, which quotes two people close to the case, said the fine would likely be in the order of several million dollars, but that the exact amount has not yet been learned. . The report says the three FTC Republican members are in favor of the settlement, while the two Democrats are against it.

Google declined Business Insider's comment request.

Read more: The FTC reportedly investigated YouTube to determine how it handled children's videos, which could lead to fundamental changes to the platform.

The announcement of the FTC's investigation goes back to June, Google is currently considering a major change to its video platform to protect children, including transferring the content of all children to YouTube Kids, an application secondary to moderation. increased, according to Bloomberg. According to reports, YouTube has also considered disabling the recommendation feature of the platform for children's programming.

This year, YouTube has already removed more than 800,000 videos violating its child safety rules.

In February, the FTC fined TikTok, a teen video app, $ 5.7 million for not requiring parental consent before collecting data from users under 13 years of age. . Such a practice, decided, violated COPPA.