Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission settled an investigation into the Google-owned video platform YouTube, resulting in the largest fine ever weighed on a tech company for violating children’s privacy law. But the $170 million in penalties and new restrictions over children’s data, critics argue, do little to incentivize the company to change its behavior.
Over the past few months, the FTC has settled a handful of prominent cases in which companies like Facebook, Equifax, and YouTube have mishandled the data of their customers and users. But in each of these cases, consumer advocacy groups and politicians have cried out, asking for the only agency with the authority to protect user privacy, the FTC, to be tougher on these…