Disney built its empire on the promise of protecting childhood innocence.
Now they’ve been exposed for doing the exact opposite.
And Disney got caught red-handed doing one thing to children that has parents seeing red.
Disney caught harvesting children’s data without parental consent
The Federal Trade Commission just hit Disney with a $10 million fine after catching the entertainment giant secretly collecting personal data from children under 13 years old.¹
The scheme was as calculated as it was disgusting.
Disney deliberately mislabeled hundreds of their videos on YouTube to avoid child protection rules, allowing Google’s platform to vacuum up private information from kids without their parents ever knowing.
Here’s how the scam worked.
Under federal law, companies can’t collect data from children under 13 without explicit parental permission through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule.
Disney found a loophole.
By refusing to label their kid-targeted videos as "Made for Kids" on YouTube, they allowed the platform to treat children like adult consumers – fair game for data harvesting and targeted advertising.
The Department of Justice complaint reveals Disney knew exactly what they were doing.
YouTube told Disney in mid-2020 that roughly 300 of their videos needed proper child protection labels to comply with federal law.
Disney ignored the warning and kept the money flowing.
The real motivation behind Disney’s betrayal of parents
Look, here’s what’s really happening – Disney wasn’t just being careless with children’s privacy.
They were actively profiting from it.
The company received a cut of every advertising dollar YouTube generated from ads placed on Disney’s mislabeled videos.
So when kids watched Disney content, the platform collected their browsing habits, location data, and personal preferences to build detailed profiles for advertisers.
Disney got paid every step of the way.
Parents who trusted Disney movies and shows for decades just got slapped in the face.
Walt Disney’s company – the one that promised magical childhoods – was running a side business selling your kid’s personal information to advertisers.
And they kept doing it even after federal regulators told them to stop.
You want to know what this really means?
It means Disney views your children as revenue streams first and kids second.
The company that once promised to protect childhood innocence was actively working to exploit it for profit.
Disney joins a rogues’ gallery of Big Tech predators
This isn’t Disney’s first dance with federal regulators, and they’re hardly alone in targeting children for data collection.
Google just paid $30 million last month for similar violations on YouTube.
Before that, Google’s parent company Alphabet shelled out $170 million in 2019 for the same basic scheme.
Fortnite maker Epic Games paid a staggering $275 million penalty in 2022 – one of the largest children’s privacy violations in history.
TikTok, Microsoft, Amazon, and Instagram have all been caught with their hands in the cookie jar when it comes to harvesting data from minors.
Here’s the pattern that should terrify every parent – these companies aren’t accidentally stumbling into violations of children’s privacy laws.
They’re making calculated business decisions to break the law because the profits outweigh the penalties.
A $10 million fine might sound like serious money to working families, but it’s pocket change for a company like Disney that generates billions in annual revenue.
The real message being sent here is simple – if you can make $50 million violating children’s privacy laws, a $10 million fine becomes just another cost of doing business.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for American families
Disney’s betrayal goes deeper than money.
They’ve broken the fundamental trust between parents and one of America’s most iconic family brands.
When you put on a Disney movie or let your kids watch Disney content online, you’re supposed to be creating safe memories – not feeding your children to data-hungry advertising algorithms.
The company’s statement about having "a long tradition of embracing the highest standards of compliance with children’s privacy laws" would be laughable if it weren’t so insulting.
They literally ignored federal warnings for years while collecting money from advertisers who wanted to target your kids.
If they get away with treating this like a minor business expense, every other entertainment company will follow the same playbook.
The next time your child watches their favorite cartoon online, remember – the companies creating that content might be more interested in what they can learn about your kid than what they can teach them.
Disney just proved that when it comes to choosing between protecting children and protecting profits, America’s most trusted family brand will choose money every single time.
¹ James Cirrone, "Disney to pay $10 million penalty over allegations of unlawful collection of children’s data," Daily Mail, September 3, 2025.
