international multiple-jurisdiction
Do data privacy laws force age restriction on youtube?
<p>If ever a privacy is passed restricting age to something higher than 13  ( COPPA ) would all youtubers be forced to age restrict videos (not made for kids ) even if they feature content suited to children or not m ? Why ? This is to prevent data collection front from children above 13 .
Example :
There is an youtuber in India corporation . Say India makes a data protection law banning data collection of children below some age x  between 13 and 18 . Would all Indian youtubers in general assuming no special provisions in that law be forced to age restrict even children videos for some age between 13 and x like videos targeted for high school ? This is to block them out and thus prevent data collection through comments or personalized ads .</p>

<p>Whatever the hypothetical new law is, the lowest-hanging fruit is Youtube, where India could take action against Youtube. The Federal Trade Commission did so w.r.t. COPPA violations in the US, and Youtube settled. Since Youtube is a US company and the FTC is a US federal agency, had this gone to court and had the FTC prevailed, the courts would have ordered Youtube to do something, and YT could not just say &quot;nuts to you&quot;. Indian courts might enter a similar judgment against YT, and in principle it could be enforced by blocking YT in India, which is not a trivial thing.</p>
<p>The other prong of legal attack would be against the channel owner. In the case of COPPA, the channel owner is also liable – for the Indian case, it would depends on what the act says. So the FTC can take action against a channel owner, although enforcement would be challenging in certain countries, but pursuant to <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/172_3083_youtube_coppa_consent_order_signed.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the court order</a>, YT could land in legal hot water if it <em>tolerates</em> violations by channel owners. The same would hold for the Indian hypothetical. The government of India may have no direct leverage against a violator, but it does have some leverage against YT, which has complete leverage against the channel owner.</p>
<p>One would have to look at the wording of the relevant act, to determine what leverage exists, for who, in India.</p>
