Google to pay $8.25 million to settle lawsuit alleging children’s privacy violations
Google has agreed to pay $8.25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit centered on claims that it habitually and illegally collected data from devices belonging to children under age 13.
The proposed settlement, which came to light Tuesday, follows a two-and-a-half year trial in a case brought by the parents of six minors who allegedly downloaded apps from Android’s Play Store that were targeted at children. The parents alleged that Google’s AdMob software development kit collected data from children at scale.
The apps the children downloaded included games such as Fun Kid Racing and GummyBear and Friends Speed Racing and were part of a Google class of apps labeled “Designed for Families (DFF).”
To be included in the DFF program, developers had to pledge to comply with the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which blocks them from knowingly collecting personal data from children 12 and younger unless a parent consents.
The parents suing Google alleged that even after the tech giant banned the apps in question from the app store, its AdMob service collected data from the children’s devices through 2021.
The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that Google knowingly flouted COPPA.
According to the complaint, Google told the public that DFF apps complied with COPPA, but in reality, defendants were surreptitiously exfiltrating the personal information of the children under the age of 13” who were playing the games.
A spokesperson for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The proposed settlement surfaced on the same day that a different federal judge greenlit a $30 million settlement in a case involving allegations that Google’s YouTube division illegally collected data from children.
That class action lawsuit dates to 2019 and centered on claims that Google used the data collected from the YouTube viewers — including IP addresses, geolocation data and device serial numbers — for targeted advertising.
Suzanne Smalley
is a reporter covering digital privacy, surveillance technologies and cybersecurity policy for The Record. She was previously a cybersecurity reporter at CyberScoop. Earlier in her career Suzanne covered the Boston Police Department for the Boston Globe and two presidential campaign cycles for Newsweek. She lives in Washington with her husband and three children.