The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that a federal court has issued a stipulated order, settling a case involving Disney Worldwide Services Inc. and Disney Entertainment Operations LLC (collectively, “Disney”).
In a settlement under the order, Disney will pay a civil penalty of $10 million as part of a settlement to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that Disney violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and its implementing rules (COPPA) in association with Disney’s popular YouTube video content.
COPPA forbids the operators of websites from collecting, using, or disclosing personal information of children below the age of 13 (hereinafter, children), unless such children give notice of and consent to their parents.
The government, in a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleged that Disney had improperly failed to label the material in YouTube videos as being directed toward children.
This led to Disney, and other of its agents acting on its behalf, targeting children on YouTube with advertising content and gathering personal data of children with no parental notice and consent, which is unlawful under COPPA.
However, the Disney video content on YouTube is very popular, and the number of views has reached billions in the United States alone.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said, “The Justice Department is firmly devoted to ensuring parents have a say in how their children’s information is collected and used. The Department will take swift action to root out any unlawful infringement on parents’ rights to protect their children’s privacy.”
Besides the civil penalty of a $10 million civil penalty imposed on Disney, the order prohibits Disney from continuing to operate on YouTube in a way that goes against COPPA and obligates it to develop a program that will help it abide by COPPA appropriately on YouTube in the future.
The United States is pursued in this action by Assistant Director Zachary A. Dietert, and Trial Attorneys Zachary L. Cowan and Francisco L. Unger, from the Enforcement Section of the Civil Division’s Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch. Therefore, Jacqueline Ford is a representative of the FTC.
