YouTube, The Babysitter

Most of us have let an attitude-oozing child be soothed by our best friend YouTube, while we try to fold the laundry or finish that meal in the restaurant while catching too many side-eyes. But we achieve the silence while the little ones are watching for the next surprise egg, next toy (Ryan, anyone?), next superhero voice over. It is quite mind-numbing, isn’t it? 

YouTube Kids channels may seem more comforting since there is less risk of autoplay content drifting to inappropriate zones. But did you know YouTube was harvesting children’s behavioral data and using that to show them targeted ads? I didn’t, but I guess it wouldn’t be hard to imagine if we thought about it for a minute. So, now what?

The 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), if I may simplify, says if you are an online business dealing with children under 13, you have to have the consent of the parent before collecting the children’s information. (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer)

This cost YouTube $170M – the heaviest fine of its kind by the FTC. It is not a lot of money if you consider YouTube makes multiples of that, EVERY YEAR. We probably collectively spent at least that much on the toys we bought as a result of the targeted ads!

What does this mean? Going forward, YouTube will ask the content creators if the material is intended for children or not. If the answer yes, targeted ads will not be displayed on those videos regardless of who is viewing. (aka less revenue) Sounds simple.

It is a step in the right direction but let me leave you with a couple other thoughts –

YouTube is putting majority of the burden on the creators to decide if the content is intended for children or not. (aka, to make more or less money from the same content). The decision is now distributed across “YouTubers,” and if the content is not categorized appropriately, that data point will be treated as if it is coming from someone who is not protected by COPPA. It is going to be harder to fix the future cases individually.

And last thought – see so far, YouTube has collected all this data, got to know what ticks our children, what makes them giggle, what keeps them watching – probably better than us. I want to point out this because while this change is positive, data and the insights about our children remain in some YouTube/Google server for the next potential channel of monetization.