Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight an analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. A record fine
Speaker 1: in a children's privacy case, YouTube will pay you one
Speaker 1: hundred seventy million dollar fine and limit ads on kids
Speaker 1: videos in order to settle claims that the company collected
Speaker 1: children's personal data without their parents consent, violating children's privacy laws.
Speaker 1: Joining me is Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech
Speaker 1: Law Institute and professor at Santa Clara University Law School. So, Eric,
Speaker 1: this fine is the largest the FTC has leveled against Google,
Speaker 1: but it pales in comparison to the five billion dollar
Speaker 1: fine the FTC imposed against Facebook this year, and two
Speaker 1: FTC commissioners thought it wasn't enough. What's your take is
Speaker 1: that despite the fact that Google and Facebook makes so
Speaker 1: much money, the FTC is really breaking some new ground here.
Speaker 1: The size of the find that the FTC is imposing
Speaker 1: dwarfs anything that anyone's ever been able to get from
Speaker 1: Google for privacy violation. So I think that the FTC
Speaker 1: should be pretty pleased with itself that it's made as
Speaker 1: much progress as it has. Let's talk about the compliance
Speaker 1: part of the settlement, which may hamper YouTube's ability to
Speaker 1: sell ads. What did YouTube agree to do? Well, one
Speaker 1: of other things they agreed to basically try to find
Speaker 1: automatically what channels are directed towards children, using algorithms and
Speaker 1: machine learning to do so. And from my prostructive, that's
Speaker 1: a really unprecedented move. Um, we haven't historically seen internet
Speaker 1: company is required to prospectively look for a material that's
Speaker 1: directed towards children. So this is a pretty major development,
Speaker 1: both from a regular air standpoint as well as from
Speaker 1: a machine learning and algorithm standpoint. Will it work? Will
Speaker 1: they be able to find the content? Well, that's a
Speaker 1: really good question, um, And that's a question that we
Speaker 1: probably ought to have a checkpoint on in a few
Speaker 1: years and revisit. We know that machine learning is getting
Speaker 1: pretty good, but really trying to reduce what's going to
Speaker 1: appeal to children it doesn't strike me as the easiest
Speaker 1: type of thing to train an algorithm to do. And
Speaker 1: what about the ads that YouTube would be selling in
Speaker 1: connection with children's programming, will it still be able to
Speaker 1: target children and their practices. Well, one other thing that's
Speaker 1: required to flush all the data that has gathered that
Speaker 1: the FTC believes is ill gotten, So that's going to
Speaker 1: hamper its ability to use the legacy data and is
Speaker 1: prohibited from continue to do that in the future. Google
Speaker 1: and other tech giants, as we've discussed before, have faced
Speaker 1: these fines over practices also involving children, and Google's under
Speaker 1: agreement with the FTC that it was fined in for violating.
Speaker 1: So how much can we trust in this particular agreement. Well,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question because on the one hand, there's
Speaker 1: good reason to believe that there are other privacy violations
Speaker 1: Google is committed, and really there's no there's no limit
Speaker 1: to where our imagination could take us with the crazy
Speaker 1: things that Google might be doing. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: this is an example that between the FTCs find of
Speaker 1: Facebook and the fine here of Google, that the FTC
Speaker 1: is paying attention to these questions and they are our
Speaker 1: champions as consumers. So on the one hand, I'm nervous
Speaker 1: about all the crazy things that could be taking place.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I'm comforted that we know that
Speaker 1: the FTC is paying attention instigation. Is this an indication
Speaker 1: of the growing pressure that big tech may face in
Speaker 1: its practices with miners? Unquestionably, there's a lot of interest
Speaker 1: in how in our companies are interacting with miners, and
Speaker 1: that's a global phenomenon. Everyone is concerned about the impact
Speaker 1: of technology on miners. I don't think that the FTC
Speaker 1: is in a unique position that way. I think that
Speaker 1: they are also interested in but they are given this
Speaker 1: special authority by Congress under the law that the FTC
Speaker 1: enforced here, and so I think that the FTC feels
Speaker 1: a responsibility to be proactively looking for ways to protect
Speaker 1: children online. So I do see this as part of
Speaker 1: a larger trend. But I don't think that this particular
Speaker 1: settlement is anything unusual. This is what the FTC has
Speaker 1: been asked to do and is doing. And what about
Speaker 1: practices of Facebook and Amazon that have been critiqued. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't have any unique insights about that, but I
Speaker 1: do think that it is time to ask some of
Speaker 1: those questions. Are there things that are hurting kids that
Speaker 1: we need to be protecting. Amazon is in a slightly
Speaker 1: different position because in theory, in order to be making
Speaker 1: acquisitions on Amazon, you need a credit card, which kids
Speaker 1: ordinarily aren't supposed to have, although increasingly they probably are.
Speaker 1: But certainly Facebook has tried in the past to screen
Speaker 1: out underage users. They in fact did a deal a
Speaker 1: kay to Go that was designed to keep the under
Speaker 1: thirteen users from accessing the service. The reality of courses
Speaker 1: that we know that they are underage users on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and so because of that generalized knowledge that Facebook has,
Speaker 1: there's some risks that they're going to have to do
Speaker 1: more to keep the kids off and keep any remaining
Speaker 1: kids safe. The big question that I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: as we've discussed this is can anything work if the
Speaker 1: parents aren't involved in policing their children. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means anymore. To be honest with you, Um,
Speaker 1: you know what they do on the internet, And so
Speaker 1: I have kids. My children are seventeen and fourteen, so
Speaker 1: there's a really perfect age for me to answer this question.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, I am nervous about where they're
Speaker 1: going online if they understand the consequences of that, and
Speaker 1: unquestionably with my conversation with them, I've seen some examples
Speaker 1: where that's not the case. However, I also want them
Speaker 1: to have some freedom. It's their time to explore and
Speaker 1: to grow and to make choices, some of which won't
Speaker 1: be great as part of their learning process. I'm really
Speaker 1: started as apparent about what to do. I know I
Speaker 1: need to be evolved with what they do, but but
Speaker 1: I can't be too involved. And that's a tough balance
Speaker 1: of strike it is. I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Eric.
Speaker 1: That's Eric Goldman. He's director of the High Tech Law
Speaker 1: Institute and a professor at Santa Clara University Law School.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can
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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso.
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