Senate Democrat Asks FTC to Force Google to Delete Data on Minors

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission should force Alphabet Inc.’s Google to delete any personal information it has collected on minors as the agency probes the company’s data collection practices with regards to kids, according to Senator Ed Markey.

Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Tuesday in a statement that the FTC should require Google’s YouTube video platform to put in place new privacy policies in any settlement agreement the agency reaches with the company.

The FTC is probing whether the world’s largest video site broke the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which makes it illegal to collect information on minors and disclose it to others without parental permission, Bloomberg reported.

Markey, who was a key force behind the passage of COPPA, said the FTC should make Google delete all data collected from children under 13, start a campaign to warn parents about minors’ use of YouTube and create ways to identify users under 13. He also said Google should be prohibited from launching any new service targeted at children until it has been approved by an independent panel of experts.

“Companies of all types have strong business incentives to gather and monetize information about children,” Markey said. “Personal information about a child can be leveraged to hook consumers for years to come, so it is incumbent upon the FTC to enforce federal law and act as a check against the ever increasing appetite for children’s data.”

YouTube is considering more changes to how it handles content for kids, according to the Bloomberg report. The company is mulling moving all videos for children to its separate YouTube Kids app, the Wall Street Journal reported. Such a drastic change is unlikely, a person familiar with the deliberations told Bloomberg.

--With assistance from Ben Brody.

To contact the reporter on this story: Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman

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