Google has agreed to pay $30 million to end a long-running lawsuit accusing the company of unlawfully collecting children’s data on YouTube.
The settlement, filed in a federal court in San Jose, California, still needs approval from Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen before payments can begin.
The case was brought by the parents of 34 children, who claimed that Google violated dozens of state laws and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
They said the company profited by tracking under-13 viewers who were drawn to cartoons, nursery rhymes, and similar content. These allegations stretch back years, covering YouTube activity between July 2013 and April 2020.
If approved, the settlement could apply to as many as 35 to 45 million children across the United States. Lawyers estimate that if even 1% of eligible families make claims, each could receive between $30 and $60 before legal costs are deducted. The legal team has also signalled plans to request up to $9 million in fees.
Google has denied wrongdoing, maintaining its stance even as it moves to resolve the matter. The company previously faced similar scrutiny in 2019, when it paid $170 million to the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
That earlier case required Google to change how YouTube handled child-directed content, stop collecting data without parental consent, and promote the YouTube Kids app. Critics at the time argued the penalties were too soft given the scale of violations.
In this latest case, claims against third-party content providers such as Hasbro, Mattel, Cartoon Network, and DreamWorks Animation were dismissed earlier this year due to lack of evidence tying them directly to data collection. Mediation with Google began shortly after, leading to the current deal.
The financial weight of the settlement may be small for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which reported $62.7 billion in profit on $186.7 billion in revenue in just the first half of 2025. YouTube alone generated nearly $10 billion in advertising sales last quarter, showing how vital child-friendly content has been to its growth.
