The Obscure deal made by Google affects America’s poor privacy protections
Internet Childproofing and the Final Days of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act: Results from the Google+, TikTok, and Meta Investigations
Since then, calls to regulate big tech companies have only grown and Congress has passed various internet childproofing bills such as restrictions on what kids can see to undermine encryption and banning young kids from using social media.
There are additional restrictions on data retention in proposed rule changes. Data would only be allowed to be maintained for specific purposes and could not be kept indefinitely. Data collection on children by education tech firms would be subject to school approval and couldn’t be used for commercial purposes.
Companies would also have to justify why they want to keep persistent identifiers on hand and would be forbidden from using them in push notifications to encourage kids to return to their apps when they aren’t actively using them.
The FTC wants to make it harder for tech companies to use childrens data for targeted advertising, and has proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
More than 175,000 public comments were received by the FTC when it began reviewing its regulations under COPPA. That same year, the regulator issued hundreds of millions of dollars in combined fines to YouTube and TikTok — the vast majority from YouTube — for mishandling data from users ages 13 and under.
Before Google’s disastrous social network Google+ came the less remembered Google Buzz. Buzz lasted less than two years. In the first of several legal settlements that took place, the US came to the understanding of online privacy, though imperfect, and is the closest it has come to establishing extensive rules for protecting privacy online.
Even though Congress is unlikely to act soon, the personal data of hundreds of millions of people who trust their data to the two big tech companies is protected by the consent decree, which is a static barrier of last resort. The FTC is undertaking an ambitious effort to modernize its deal with Meta, but appeals by the company could drag the process out for years and kill the prospect of future decrees.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that would limit data retention by technology companies. Data collection on children by education technology firms would be subject to school approval. Companies would also have to justify why they want to keep persistent identifiers on hand.