I see a lot of strange “well iPhone is just as bad/worse” in this thread, which means these individuals are missing the forest through the trees.

This isn’t a assertion of x brand over y brand. This is a statement of fact that a major storefront for a widely used product is, in essence, illegally targeting children with ads designed for adults and also storing personal data on how to more effectively & aggressively target them with ads for manipulations within the market.

If you’re commenting about the comparable nature of different platforms that also do the same thing, then you’ve missed the point.

ICO’s age appropriate design code was set in place to preclude children from malicious targeting so as to protect them from mal-actors in the market who would take advantage of specifically them.

This study has shined a light on the clear failure to comply by roughly a quarter of the products for sale that were reviewed, and when pressed for response a google rep shat out the typical corporate answer of evasion and disregard, even so far as to say they leave the DEVELOPERS responsible for complying. While I realize that might simply mean the devs must make the changes to reach compliance standards, it also tells me that the storefront is intentionally under-moderated.

ICO needs to start swinging around those fines in a heavy way, against google and the individual app devs.