New Mexico AG Announces Landmark Settlements with Google Over Children’s Online Privacy

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas announced that his Consumer & Environmental Protection Division has resolved two federal court cases filed against Google. Both cases concern allegations made by Balderas against the company under the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, as well as under state consumer protection laws. The centerpiece of these settlements is the creation and funding of the Google New Mexico Kids Initiative. The Initiative sets aside millions of dollars to fund efforts to promote education, privacy, and safety for New Mexico children across the state. Google and Attorney General Balderas will work together in the coming weeks to identify recipients of these funds, which will be spent within New Mexico for the benefit of New Mexico’s children. Within Google’s widely-used Workspace for Education products, Google now provides school administrators with tools to protect minor students from improper collection of their personal data, including age-based access settings to ensure that minor children’s data is protected from unauthorized collection and disclosure. New Mexico schools will also get early access to new products and initiatives as part of the Google for Education Pilot Program. In Google’s Play Store, Google will take a much more active role in policing app developers that mislabel their child-directed apps in an effort to make more money from targeted advertising and user profiling. Google will also enact a number of reforms, including a requirement that apps implement age screening measures to ensure that these apps do not collect information from children under the age of 13, and increasing parents’ visibility into what information apps are collecting from their children.