A water tower is located at Walt Disney studios on June 3, 2025 in Burbank, California.
Mario Tama | Getty images
The Walt Disney Company will pay $ 10 million to settle the allegations of the Federal Trade Commission according to which it allowed the illegal collection of personal data from children on YouTube.
The FTC said that the company had made it possible to collect data from children who have consulted videos for children on YouTube without informing parents or obtaining their consent.
The complaint allegedly alleged that Disney had violated the children’s privacy protection rule by not abandoning certain YouTube videos as being made for children. The agency said the company was able to collect data from content viewers led by children under 13 and use it for targeted advertising.
In 2019, after a settlement with the FTC, YouTube began to demand that content creators indicate whether downloaded videos have been “made for children” or “not made for children”. The designation guarantees that personal information is not collected in “Made for Kids” videos and that personalized announcements will not be served to viewers. Comments are also disabled on these videos.
The proposed regulations would force Disney to pay a civil penalty of $ 10 million, to respect the child data protection rule and to implement a program to examine whether the videos published on YouTube must be designated as “made for children”.
“Supporting the well-being and safety of children and families is at the heart of what we do,” the company said in a statement obtained by CNBC. “These regulations do not imply the digital platforms held and exploited by Disney, but is rather limited to the distribution of some of our contents on the YouTube platform. Disney has a long tradition of adopting the highest standards of compliance with children’s privacy laws, and we remain determined to invest in the tools necessary to continue to be a leader in this space.”
Axios was the first to report the regulations.