San Diego Sues AppLovin Over Explicit Ads Shown to Kids’ Devices

San Diego County has filed a lawsuit against mobile advertising technology company AppLovin Corp., alleging that it bypassed parental controls to serve ads for adult dating services, alcohol, vaping, and graphic sexual content in games played by children. According to the complaint filed with the San Diego Superior Court, AppLovin collected sensitive data from children’s devices even when parental controls and ad-tracking opt-outs were enabled, including information precise enough to pinpoint where kids live, where they study, and whether they are sleeping. The lawsuit is one of three filed on Monday by San Diego County’s newly formed Consumer Fairness and Public Protection Unit, which was created in response to what local officials describe as dwindling federal enforcement of consumer protections. The unit is also suing gaming company Roblox Corp. for inadequate protections against adults posing as children and suing 3D-printing materials firm Polymaker for marketing materials used to assemble illegal, untraceable guns. AppLovin did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company’s policies prohibit collecting children’s data or using its technology to target kids with ads, stating it does not knowingly collect personal information from children or serve advertisements to children. The complaint includes screenshots of ads shown in a physics-based puzzle game on an Android device configured for a six-year-old with Google’s parental controls enabled, including ads for a sexualized AI chatbot app and cannabis gummies. The lawsuit alleges that AppLovin bypassed Apple and Google’s settings using fingerprinting to track children for ad-targeting purposes without parental consent and fed the data into its artificial intelligence advertising engine. The Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating AppLovin’s advertising practices last year, but AppLovin’s Chief Financial Officer Matt Stumpf said the agency closed its investigation without recommending enforcement action during an earnings call in August.

(Source：Livemint)