Case Study: Information Privacy & YouTube

Abstract

Many individuals and organizations in the United States rely on YouTube to publicly share information and/or promote their organization and offerings. However, YouTube has mastered the practice of offering users a false sense of security when it comes to their information privacy. While there are many policies in place within YouTube’s privacy standards–and children’s personally identifiable information (PII) is rather well protected by the site due to a settlement requiring the site to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA)–there are little to no true protections for users when faced with the threat of their information being leaked to bad actors. This does not have to be the case, though, as YouTube has the ability to strengthen their policies to offer more assistance to its users in times where their PII may be used in a malicious way. On the other hand, it is not solely up to YouTube to be responsible in creating new policies surrounding user privacy. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for regulating privacy practices for companies in the United States and has yet to make a groundbreaking move against social media sites like YouTube to protect the information of web users. By instituting regulations that perform similarly to laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of Europe, or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the United States can offer consumers better protections in regard to their PII and web safety overall.