The Walt Disney Company agreed to pay $10 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that they allowed children’s personal data to be collected from YouTube videos.
Disney Pays to Settle FTC Complaint
The complaint filed by the Department of Justice on notification and referral from the FTC alleged that Disney had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule), which “requires websites, apps and other online services that are directed to children under 13 to notify parents about what personal information they collect and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting such information.”
According to the complaint, Disney had violated the COPPA Rule by failing to properly label some kid-targeted videos uploaded to YouTube as “Made for Kids.” This alleged mislabeling allowed Disney to collect personal data from children under 13 years of age and use the data to target advertising to children. The mislabeling also led to videos not “Made for Kids” to autoplay.
“This case underscores the FTC’s commitment to enforcing COPPA, which was enacted by Congress to ensure that parents, not companies like Disney, make decisions about the collection and use of their children’s personal information online,” said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson in a release. “Our order penalizes Disney’s abuse of parents’ trust, and, through a mandated video-review program, makes room for the future of protecting kids online—age assurance technology.”
YouTube began requiring content creators to mark videos as “Made for Kids” or “Not Made for Kids” following a 2019 settlement with the FTC. YouTube does not collect personal data, deliver targeted ads, or allow comments on “Made for Kids” videos.
Users can change the settings on individual videos as well as set a channel as “Made for Kids” or “Not Made for Kids.” The FTC states that Disney had their channel settings default to “Not Made for Kids” and did not change videos individually. In mid-2020, YouTube told Disney they had changed the settings on 300 Disney videos from “Not Made for Kids” to “Made for Kids” but Disney did not change their policies after that notice.
The videos marked as “Not Made for Kids” featured child-directed subject matter, visual content, and music from The Incredibles, Coco, Toy Story, Frozen, and Mickey Mouse.
Under the proposed settlement, Disney will not only pay $10 million and comply with the COPPA Rule in the future, but establish and implement a program to review whether their YouTube videos should be marked as “Made for Kids” — unless YouTube implements age assurance technologies that can determine the age, age range, or age category of all YouTube users or no longer allows content creators to label videos as “Made for Kids.”
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