$30 Million Settlement in SGT’s Child Tracking Litigation Against Google and YouTube Gets Final Approval

January 13, 2026

A California federal judge gave final approval to a $30 million settlement in Silver Golub & Teitell’s pioneering case against Google LLC and its YouTube subsidiary for illegally collecting the personal information of children and then using it to show them targeted advertisements.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen approved the settlement, which provides compensation to children under 13 whose data was allegedly misappropriated without their parents’ consent, at a hearing on January 13.

The settlement followed six years of litigation that included five different judges, multiple challenges to the pleadings, and a precedent-setting appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Silver Golub & Teitell filed the case in 2019. U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman dismissed the case twice, based on her conclusion that claims based on violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) were preempted under federal law. In December 2022, SGT obtained reversal of this decision in a unanimous decision from the Ninth Circuit, which held that state law remedies for violations overlapping with COPPA were not preempted by federal law.

Judge Van Keulen announced her intention to uphold privacy claims and some state consumer protection law claims in January 2025. “Based on these allegations, the court may reasonably infer at the pleading stage that Google knew it was collecting children's data through YouTube in violation of the COPPA,” Judge van Keulen wrote at the time.

The parties reached a settlement agreement soon after, with Judge Van Keulen granting preliminary approval in September.

The case is Hubbard et al. v. Google et al., No. 5:19-cv-07016 (N.D. Cal.).

Media contact: mediarequests@sgtlaw.com