PPB October 2019

TECH TALK In YouTube We Trust? The video-sharing platform is hit with a $170M fine after illegally collecting data about users under age 13. YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing site and owned by Google, paid a $170-million fine to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and New York State in September for failing to obtain parental consent to collect data about its users under the age of 13. Yes, YouTube not only tracks your online behavior, but it was illegally tracking your children’s online activity, too—intentionally. Under federal law, children under the age of 13 are protected by the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which requires companies to receive parental consent before collecting and dispersing children’s personal information. The fine called for Google to pay a whopping $136 million to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and an additional $34 million to New York State—Google is based in Mountain View, California, but operates an office in New York City. This is the harshest action taken against a major technology company in the past five years involving minors. The question here, however, is whether the fine even outweighs the plethora of consumer data collected. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Inc.—which owns the more than 200 companies acquired by Google—grossed $30.7 billion last year from an annual revenue of $136.8 billion, according to The Guardian, and when considered against the fine, $170 million appears quite minimal. In fact, according to CNET, $170 million is equivalent to just 11 hours’ CITIZEN embraces those who reach higher and go further, who are always motivated to improve no matter what they accomplished in the past. CITIZEN Corporate Sales now o ers dial imprinting and caseback or clasp engraving capabilities. Contact us for more information Richard Low | Vice President Corporate Sales rlow@citizenwatchgroup.com citizenwatch.com/corporatesales GO FURTHER P O W E R E D B Y A N Y L I G H T Never Needs a Battery 78 | OCTOBER 2019 | THINK