Sources: to satisfy regulators, YouTube officials are finalizing plans to end targeted advertisements on videos kids are likely to watch
even though they're not supposed to. Clear now? https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @technology @mhbergen Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : YouTube is finalizing plans to end targeted ads on videos kids are likely to watch, @mhbergen reports. -FTC has settled COPPA investigation -unclear if targeted ads ban on kid vids is part of the settlement - unclear how YouTube would define kids vids https://www.bloomberg.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : Some news: YouTube is moving forward with plans to end “targeted” ads on kid vids, rather than cutting off all ads or moving these vids to the Kids app. https://www.bloomberg.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This report is the planning stage of what became YouTube's biggest child-privacy concession. The FTC settlement over COPPA violations had already imposed revenue-depressing conditions on creators — comments off, notifications stripped — and Bloomberg's reporting here shows YouTube choosing its least-bad compliance option: keep the ads, kill the targeting, rather than pull kids' videos from the main site entirely.
The stakes run beyond the settlement itself: Bloomberg had earlier documented how unmarked "kidfluencer" sponsored marketing was reaching under-13 viewers the platform officially bars from holding accounts, so ad practices on kids' content were already under ethical as well as legal pressure. The plans reported here are what later shipped as the January changes rolled out on the main site alongside YouTube Kids promotions.
First-order effects
- Creators whose channels get classified as kids' content lose targeted-ad rates on those videos immediately — and face the added settlement terms like disabled comments that depress engagement metrics.
- YouTube avoids the two harsher options on the table — pulling all ads or exiling kids' videos to the YouTube Kids app — but takes on the undefined task of deciding which videos "kids are likely to watch."
Second-order effects
- Advertisers buying kids' audiences must shift from behavioral targeting to context-based placement, and brands behind kidfluencer sponsorships face heightened scrutiny of disclosure practices already flagged as a legal minefield.
- Classification disputes become inevitable: creators who contest the "made for kids" label versus YouTube's incentives to over-classify, since misclassification is what drew the FTC in the first place.
Third-order effects
- If COPPA-style settlements become the enforcement template, every ad-funded video platform faces the same trade — audience scale or personalization data on underage viewers — pushing the industry toward age-segmented products like YouTube Kids by default.
- Regulators gain proof that privacy terms can force product-design changes at platform scale, not just fines, raising the ceiling for what future child-privacy enforcement can demand.
The trend: Child-privacy regulation is forcing ad-funded video platforms to decouple monetization from behavioral profiling on minors, with COPPA enforcement setting the template.