A lawsuit has been filed with the US Federal Court in California, accusing Google of violating children’s confidentiality by collecting their personal data from applications that were noted as safe for children. The lawsuit alleges that Google and its Admob advertising platform deceived parents and children, thus violating the US law on the protection of children’s confidentiality on the internet (Coppa), which requires online services to receive parents’ consent to collect and use personal information of children under 13 years of age.
According to the claim, Google launched its “Designed for Families” (DFF) program in 2015 to attract application developers for children and earn on targeted advertising. The DFF program suggested that applications for children should comply with certain quality and safety standards and not show advertising based on the interests of users. However, the plaintiffs claim that Google allowed developers to mislabel their applications as “mixed audience” or “not intended for children” to collect the data of all users of the application and show them advertising, in breach of Coppa while misleading parents and children about the applications’ friendly nature.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of six minors from California, Florida and New York, seeks compensation for violation of the laws of the States on the Protection of Privacy and Consumer Rights. The defendant, Google, has not made a comment on the lawsuit.