• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, Yesterday

Google has reached a “settlement in principle” that would resolve class-action claims that it violated children's privacy by tracking their YouTube activity in order to serve targeted ads, according to court papers filed late last week.

The company and class counsel are still negotiating formal terms, and expect to disclose them in court by August 11.

If granted judicial approval, the settlement with resolve a battle that began in 2019, when California resident Nicole Hubbard sued YouTube and various channel operators -- including Cartoon Network, DreamWorks, Mattel and Hasbro -- on behalf of her 5-year-old child, who viewed YouTube channels aimed at young children.

Hubbard's complaint -- later joined by other parents -- came soon after Google agreed to pay $170 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General that YouTube wrongly collected data via tracking cookies from viewers younger than 13.

The class-action complaint includes a claim that Google engaged in “intrusion upon seclusion” -- a privacy charge that can be brought in California and several other states, and involves “highly offensive” conduct.

News of the settlement comes around four months after U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen refused to dismiss the claims against Google.

Google unsuccessfully argued to van Keulen that the allegations, even if proven true, wouldn't show that the companies' conduct was “highly offensive” -- in part, because the alleged data collection and use “was clearly disclosed and involved data elements routinely captured as part of internet browsing activity.”

The judge rejected that argument, ruling that if the allegations in the complaint were proven true, they could show that Google “engaged in highly offensive conduct.”

But she dismissed the claims against the channel operators, writing that the allegations regarding data collection “focus on Google's conduct.”

Earlier in the proceedings, U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman in San Jose dismissed the case, ruling that the lawsuit was foreclosed by the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which only authorizes suits by the FTC and attorneys general. That law prohibits web companies from knowingly collecting personal data from children under 13, without parental consent.

In 2023, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case, ruling that the federal children's privacy law doesn't prevent people from bringing private lawsuits for related claims rooted in state laws -- such as intrusion upon seclusion.