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FTC's YouTube Privacy Settlement Pisses Everyone Off; Perhaps We're Doing Privacy Wrong

FTC's YouTube Privacy Settlement Pisses Everyone Off; Perhaps We're Doing Privacy Wrong

5 years ago
Anonymous $9jpehmcKty

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190719/16580042617/ftcs-youtube-privacy-settlement-pisses-everyone-off-perhaps-were-doing-privacy-wrong.shtml

It's becoming a tradition. A week ago, we wrote about a Friday evening news "leak" (almost certainly from Facebook) about the FTC approving a settlement with Facebook over privacy violations. And, this past Friday evening, there was a similar news dump about a similar settlement with YouTube (though at a much lower dollar amount). In both cases, the Friday evening news dump was almost certainly on purpose -- in the hopes that by Monday, something bigger will have caught the news cycles' attention. Thankfully, we don't work that way.

Let's cut to the chase, though. No one (outside of, perhaps, YouTube/Google/Alphabet execs) is "happy" with this. Pretty much everyone will point out, accurately, that a "multi-million dollar" fine is effectively meaningless to YouTube. No one believes that this will magically lead to a world in which internet companies take privacy more seriously. No one believes this will lead to a world in which anyone's privacy is better protected.