YouTubers lobbying to fight child privacy law expansion

Bloomberg

Producers of prominent children’s YouTube channels will appeal to the FTC to change its recent settlement with the video service and will circulate a new petition online urging certain changes.
In September, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) fined YouTube and its parent, Alphabet Inc’s Google, $170 million for violating privacy laws by tracking children online. With the settlement, YouTube also agreed not to run “personalized” advertisements — which rely on web browsing behavior and other targeting data — on videos it decided are aimed at kids.
“Shutting off personalized ads on creators’ content will cause more harm than good, especially for children,” reads the Change.org petition. “Quality family-friendly content will shrink, while more mature content will grow — yet kids will still be watching.”
The petition was started by Jeremy Johnston, a creator whose channel, J House Vlogs, has nearly 2 million subscribers. Johnston said he has met with multiple FTC commissioners about the issue. “I was surprised about how little they knew about the YouTube creator perspective,” he said. Johnston described his meetings with the agency as “really productive.”
Videos for kids are among the most-watched on YouTube. Cocomelon, a channel of nursery rhymes, is the third-most-popular channel on the site, according to SocialBlade. Like Nastya, a child video blogger, ranks fifth.

Tough Spot
The popularity of kids’ programming has put YouTube in an uncomfortable position. The company has maintained that the site isn’t for children, and doesn’t allow viewers under the age of 13. It created a separate app for kids, but its audience is about 1% the size of YouTube’s total reach.
The internet obliterated many of the safeguards on children’s media. While television networks have strict regulations about what m — and some kids’ TV networks don’t accept advertising — there are no such rules online.
The FTC is in the process of reviewing how technology companies collect data on minors, a practice regulated under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.