After breaking a law on children’s’ privacy, YouTube is paying a 170 million dollar fine. The article by Rachel Lerman and Marcy Gordon discusses how Google collected personal data on kids using the YouTube video service and what rules it breaks. The targeted ads on kids’ videos violate the 1998 law that parental consent is required to share the children’s information if they are under 13. YouTube was targeting ads on video channels directed to kids seven and under. The article then dives into how the settlement has been criticized. Criticisms include how the fines “signals that politically powerful corporations can break the law without serious consequences,” and how creators may try to make more ad revenue and Google can let it slide.
With a story talking about media companies and ads going too far, this is an extremely relevant news story. It gives a sense of just how targeted advertisements have become everywhere, even impacting children. However, the article is strangely ordered in the beginning. It actually brings up the law in question seven paragraphs into the story. In the beginning, it goes how Google has to pay a total 170 million to the Federal Trade Commission and New York State but then abruptly moves on to what law got violated and how. I feel like those two things should have been switched. Even as an article talking about children’s data on YouTube, it doesn’t seem targeted at parents. The target audience looks to be anyone who keeps up with the privacy debate as media collects more data on people.
I think the organization makes sense, Calissa, because the audience is the one you mention in the last sentence. It’s not aimed at parents so much as privacy protectionists. It may be hard to tell, but if you look at the URL this story was filed as a technology story.
I would put myself in that audience. I’m more interesed in the issue as a computer user than I am as a [former] parent.