YouTube sued with a $3 billion lawsuit in UK over children’s privacy

A lawsuit has been filed against YouTube alleging that the platform violated privacy laws in the country by tracking children online. The case filed on behalf of over 5 million British children, under the age of 13, says that Google-owned YouTube unlawfully targeted young children with addictive programming and harvested their data for advertisers. “They do all this without getting explicit consent from the children’s parents.” McCann said that his kids love YouTube, and he wants them to be able to use it; he is also relatively conscious of what’s happening with his kids’ data online. YouTube claims not to target under age viewers, but the law firm said that the video-streaming platform, in pitch materials to toy makers Matter and Hasbro, boasted that it was the ‘new Saturday morning cartoons,’ ‘the number one website visited regularly by kids,’ ‘today’s leader in reaching children age 6-11 against top tv channels,’ ‘and unanimously voted as the favourite website of kids 2-12.’ The firm added that YouTube’s algorithms are geared to maximise engagement that keeps children hooked on their platform longer. Last year, it had to pay $170 million to the US Federal Trade Commission for alleged violations of COPPA, a US children’s privacy law.