TL;DR
- A 2019 class-action suit against Google and YouTube was settled for $30 million.
- The suit accused Google and YouTube of collecting identifying information about minors without parental consent.
- Affected users are now able to file claims to potentially receive a portion of the $30 million settlement.
Kids watch a lot of YouTube. Google’s keenly aware of that: It offers a version of the YouTube app that’s explicitly made for children’s content in YouTube Kids, and earlier this year, rolled out a controversial AI-based age estimation system to automatically flag accounts that may be used by minors.
These measures are meant in part to help Google avoid legal trouble — like a 2019 class-action suit filed in California accusing Google and YouTube of violating privacy laws by collecting information about minors for the purposes of advertising. The suit was eventually settled for a sum of $30 million, and now, according to Top Class Actions, affected users are able to submit claims to get a cut of that settlement.