Youtube, a Google company, has been continuing to track video data on content made for children.
Children’s content remains a major source of income for streaming services, Youtube chief among them. While using this data might make financial sense, it also opens the door to sensitive information being collected. Cord Cutters News reports:
YouTube is still tracking children through ads served to video marked as “made for kids,” according Adalytics, a research firm that looks at ad campaigns for brands.
The study found that ads from Fortune 500 advertisers and major media agencies are still being attached to children’s content, including popular channels such as Cocomelon Nursery Rhymes & Kids and ChuChu TV Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs. As a result, data brokers and ad tech companies are receiving data from those viewers and could be tracking them, Adalytics said.
Both Republicans and Democrats have been pushing for an investigation into Google, Marsha Blackburn chief among them. The Hill continues:
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) demanded Thursday that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate social media company YouTube over potential violations of how it is tracking and targeting children on their platforms.
“YouTube and Google cannot continue treating young people’s data as an unprotected commodity from which to profit with abandon. Not only must the FTC Act, but Congress must also pass legislation to protect young people’s privacy online and finally ban targeted advertising to kids and teens,” the lawmakers wrote to the FTC.
This could mean new Congressional oversight to protect America’s children. Google might fully cooperate in the fight to end child
READ NEXT: AI Goes Rogue
