A US appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a lawsuit accusing Alphabet’s Google and several other companies of violating the privacy of children under 13 by tracking their YouTube activities without parental consent. It has accused them of sending targeted ads by tracking them.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle said Congress did not intend to preempt privacy claims based on state law by adopting the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.
The law gives the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general, but not private prosecutors, the authority to regulate the online collection of personal data about children under 13.
The lawsuit alleged that Google’s data collection violated similar state laws, and that YouTube content providers such as Hasbro, Mattel, Cartoon Network and DreamWorks Animation targeted children on their channels. Persuaded, knowing they would be tracked down.
In July 2021, U.S. District Judge Beth Leibson Freeman in San Francisco dismissed the lawsuit, saying federal privacy law preempted the plaintiffs’ claims under California, Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Tennessee law. is given
But in Wednesday’s 3-0 ruling, Circuit Judge Margaret McKeon said the wording of the federal statute made it “absurd” to assume that Congress could have prevented plaintiffs from using state laws targeting the same alleged misconduct. Wants to stop.
The case was returned to Freeman to consider other grounds that Google and the content providers might have to reject.
Lawyers for Google and the content providers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Attorneys for the children did not immediately respond to similar requests.
In October 2019, Google agreed to pay $170 million to settle allegations by the FTC and New York Attorney General Letitia James that YouTube illegally collected children’s personal data without parental consent.
The plaintiffs in the San Francisco case said Google did not begin complying with COPPA until January 2020.
Their lawsuit sought damages for YouTube users 16 and under from July 2013 to April 2020.
The case of Jones et al v. Google LLC et al, 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 21-16281.
