Youtube investigation in late stage, might face fine for improper data collection

The Federal Trade Commission is in the late stages of an investigation into how Google’s YouTube handles children’s videos, a probe prompted by complaints that the company failed to protect kids who used the service and improperly collected their data.That’s according to a report Wednesday in The Washington Post, which said the company faces a possible fine and that YouTube executives have accelerated internal talks about possible changes in how the service recommends videos to viewers. Reports this week said YouTube is also considering moving all kids’ content into a separate app.[caption id="attachment_4705071" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

Representational image. Pixabay.[/caption]The FTC had no comment. Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville said the company had no comment on the Post report. She added in a statement that the company considers “lots of ideas for improving YouTube.”