Not just a account, youtube requires a age of 13+ (in US) to be used at all as far as I know. This normally would have safely removed any legal problems as a parent allowing the child (<13) to use youtube (on their account, without account) would be a violation of the AGB's like a parent allowing a child to play a 18+ game can't sue the game for being violent or similar (i.e. it's parental negligence).
The problem as far as I have heard was that youtube realized that there are a lot of to young (<13y) people on youtube and that they can be targeted advertised (implicitly, in a way which just "happens to" target kids "accidentally"), and then they where so stupid as to advertise that when getting in contact with advertisers. So in a certain way they screwed them self over, or more precise they screwed part of the content creators over.
The problem with the FTC requiring content producers for youtube (13+) to label videos as "for kids" is that with the FTC rules a lot of videos which are not meant for kids and are never supposed to be delivered to kids now fall under this label and lose targeted advertisement money, which can be there major income.
E.g. there are a bunch of channels doing LEGO reviews for _adults_ (because surprise there are a lot of young adults which started to like LEGO again, parents and also that cray people thinking it's a good money investment). Now because they do LEGO reviews they will have to label this as a kids thing, even through the amount of kids on their channels is less then 2%.... Or basically any easy to understand since video gets practically demonetized, because it's naturally interesting for 12y olds and has nice animations etc. This videos are fine to be seen by kids, but the producers would prefer kids to be excluded as they need to earn money to at least cover production cost.
Also because officially there are not <13y old kids on YT it means YT can't just "not track" the kids but everyone else.
Also we should not forget that there is YT for kids, so if you produce (good) content targeted at kids this is where you should go.
So it's a pretty messed up situation. If you now consider who has very large influence over the FTC and who either hates the modern internet which made people stop watching classical cable, or would like to additional bill YT (more?) etc. it's doesn't seem likely to resolve in a reasonable way, at last I would be surprised. But then I have been surprised before so let's hope it ends not to bad.
Hm, good question. COPPA is pretty old so I'm wondering if "digital consensus by creating the account" is good enough or if you would had to send some more formal document (letter, fax with signature).
> Hm, good question. COPPA is pretty old so I'm wondering if "digital consensus by creating the account" is good enough or if you would had to send some more formal document (letter, fax with signature).
I would doubt the need for a physical artifact—I mean, even the IRS accepts digital returns.
If you are watching youtube without an account then you are not posting comments. (The FTC article gives a specific example of a child posting a comment as being a disclosure of personal information.) Where is any tracking or collection of data whatsoever controlled by the channel host in cases of people viewing without an account?
If the child DOES post a comment, then that means they lied to YouTube about their age when signing up for an account. Why is this a channel host's legal responsibility, and what possible measures could be implemented to avoid it other than requiring an identity disclosing internet drivers license to be presented before each use of the internet.
The problem as far as I have heard was that youtube realized that there are a lot of to young (<13y) people on youtube and that they can be targeted advertised (implicitly, in a way which just "happens to" target kids "accidentally"), and then they where so stupid as to advertise that when getting in contact with advertisers. So in a certain way they screwed them self over, or more precise they screwed part of the content creators over.
The problem with the FTC requiring content producers for youtube (13+) to label videos as "for kids" is that with the FTC rules a lot of videos which are not meant for kids and are never supposed to be delivered to kids now fall under this label and lose targeted advertisement money, which can be there major income.
E.g. there are a bunch of channels doing LEGO reviews for _adults_ (because surprise there are a lot of young adults which started to like LEGO again, parents and also that cray people thinking it's a good money investment). Now because they do LEGO reviews they will have to label this as a kids thing, even through the amount of kids on their channels is less then 2%.... Or basically any easy to understand since video gets practically demonetized, because it's naturally interesting for 12y olds and has nice animations etc. This videos are fine to be seen by kids, but the producers would prefer kids to be excluded as they need to earn money to at least cover production cost.
Also because officially there are not <13y old kids on YT it means YT can't just "not track" the kids but everyone else.
Also we should not forget that there is YT for kids, so if you produce (good) content targeted at kids this is where you should go.
So it's a pretty messed up situation. If you now consider who has very large influence over the FTC and who either hates the modern internet which made people stop watching classical cable, or would like to additional bill YT (more?) etc. it's doesn't seem likely to resolve in a reasonable way, at last I would be surprised. But then I have been surprised before so let's hope it ends not to bad.