According to the latest report, Google announced on Tuesday that it will no longer allow advertising targeting based on children’s age, gender, or interests. This is part of a series of new measures designed to protect young people under the age of 18 from using its services.
That he changes include anyone under 18 years of age you can request deletion of their image from Google’s image results, and on YouTube uploaded by children’s content will gradually default to the most intimate of settings.
These changes are similar to the measures Facebook introduced last month when the company stated that the Instagram accounts of children under the age of 16 will be set to privacy by default, which means that users must choose to make their personal information public.
It also prohibits ads targeting children based on their interests or their activities, although it still allows targeting them based on age, gender, and location. Google said that the company introduced its changes based on new regulations being introduced in some countries, and it hopes to provide a consistent product experience and user control globally.
Google warns that requiring the removal of images from Google’s image search will not completely remove them from the web, but it says this should give users more control over the spread of their images. While changing the ad targeting, Google also said that it is expanding safeguards to prevent age-sensitive ad categories from being shown to teenagers.
The search giant has also made some other adjustments to its children’s services. SafeSearch will now be opened by default for users under 18 years old, while previously it was opened by default for users under 13 years old. This feature can prevent explicit results from appearing in searches and will also appear in the Google Smart Display web browser.
Users under the age of 18 will no longer be able to open location history in their Google account settings (Google said that all account settings have been turned off by default). Smart devices that support voice assistants will also be able to block news, podcasts, and access to the Internet in the coming months.
On YouTube, the auto-play function for children under the age of 18 will be turned off by default, and it is turning on the rest reminder function. The YouTube Kids Channel will have a new autoplay option, but it will also be turned off by default. Google said that there will be new resources for young people and their parents to use to help them better understand (Google) data practices.
These new features were introduced in different time frames. The option to require removal of images from Google Image Search, as well as changes to the default privacy settings for YouTube videos, will be rolled out in the coming weeks. New restrictions on ad targeting, SafeSearch changes, and tools to block content on smart devices that support Google’s voice assistant will be launched in the coming months.
