If Your Kid Used a Google Play App Before Turning 13, You Have Until September 14 to Claim

If you have a kid who was under 13 any time since April 2015 and they played a game or used an app from the Google Play Store, there’s money on the table with your name on it. Estimated payouts run $40 to $200. You have until September 14, and you don’t need a single receipt.

You file, not them. A parent or guardian has to submit for anyone who was under 18 as of May 29 this year.

The case is A.B. v. Google LLC, and the allegation is uglier than the usual privacy squabble. Google ran a program called “Designed for Families,” which is exactly what it sounds like: a shelf parents were told was the safe one. Developers self-certified that they complied with the children’s privacy law and promised to use ad software that didn’t track kids.

Some of them dropped in Google’s own AdMob software instead. That code collected IP addresses, device identifiers, usage data, and location down to within five meters, then used it to serve targeted ads to children. The lawsuit alleges Google knew this was happening to millions of kids under 13 and let it run because the advertising revenue ran to billions. Security researchers reportedly flagged it back in 2018. Google denies wrongdoing and agreed to pay $8.25 million.

Billions in, $8.25 million out.

Between 3.8 million and 10 million people are covered by this class. Divide the fund by the high end and it’s about 83 cents a head. So how does anyone get $200?

Because almost nobody files. The estimate of $40 to $200 implies somewhere around 41,000 to 206,000 valid claims, which against a class of up to 10 million is a filing rate of one or two percent at best. Every settlement estimate you read carries that same assumption underneath it. The payout looks generous because 98 percent of the people owed it will never spend the four minutes.

Spend the four minutes. Go to COPPAPrivacyClassAction.com, use the class member ID from your notice or register on the site to get one, and file before September 14. There is no proof requirement and no download history to dig up. A judge takes up final approval on September 24.

Then check the ad settings on whatever your kid is holding right now, because a settlement over conduct from 2015 does not fix 2026. On an Android device, open Settings, find Google, then Ads, and turn off ad personalization. If the household uses Family Link, confirm the child’s account is actually linked to it rather than running as a standard account with a fake birth year, which is how most of these controls quietly stop applying.

The law here isn’t complicated. Federal rules require verifiable parental consent “before any collection, use, or disclosure of personal information from children” under 13, and personal information is defined to include a persistent identifier that recognizes a user over time and across services: a cookie, an IP address, a device serial number, a unique device ID. Exactly the things the complaint says AdMob took. This settlement is what that rule costs when it gets treated as a suggestion, and the price works out to under a dollar per kid.

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