Google Play COPPA Settlement: $8.25M, File by Sept. 14

At a glance

Status

Re-verifying

Defendant

Google LLC / AdMob Google Inc.

Settlement fund

$8,250,000

Claim deadline

September 14, 2026

No-proof cash option

Yes — Pro rata cash payment to valid claimants from the Settlement Fund; no documentation required.

Estimated payout

Pro rata cash payment to valid claimants from the Settlement Fund; no documentation required.

Administrator

Kroll Settlement Administration LLC

Official site

www.coppaprivacyclassaction.com

Court

A.B., et al. v. Google LLC, et al., U.S. District Court, Northern District of California

Case number

5:23-cv-03101

Last verified July 16, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	September 14, 2026	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	August 4, 2026(passed)	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	August 4, 2026(passed)	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	September 24, 2026	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

Google Play Children's Privacy (COPPA) Settlement is administered by Kroll Settlement Administration LLC. The only place to file is the official settlement website:

Verify on the official site

www.coppaprivacyclassaction.com

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

Google has agreed to pay $8.25 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of collecting personal information from children under 13 through apps on the Google Play Store, without first getting a parent's permission as federal law requires. The claim window is open now, and the deadline to file is September 14, 2026.

What the lawsuit alleges

The case, A.B., et al. v. Google LLC, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is numbered 5:23-cv-03101. It accuses Google LLC and its AdMob advertising subsidiary of collecting, using, and disclosing personal information from children under 13 through apps distributed on Google Play, without first obtaining verifiable parental consent, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA.

COPPA is a federal law, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, that applies to websites and apps directed at children and to any operator that knows it is collecting data from a user under 13. It requires those operators to get a parent's verifiable consent before collecting that child's personal information, such as a name, location, or identifier used to track a device across apps. The lawsuit claims Google and AdMob did not meet that bar for the apps and time period at issue.

Google and AdMob deny the allegations and deny any wrongdoing. Like most class action settlements, this one resolves the case without either side admitting fault, in exchange for ending years of litigation.

Where the case stands right now

As of July 2026, the settlement has preliminary court approval and is in its claims period. The deadline to exclude yourself from the class or object to its terms is August 4, 2026.

The claim deadline is September 14, 2026, and the final approval hearing, where a judge decides whether to formally approve the deal, is set for September 24, 2026, ten days after the claim window closes. Because the claim deadline falls before that hearing, file by September 14 regardless of what happens at the hearing. Waiting on the judge's decision risks missing the claim window for nothing.

Who is covered by the settlement

The class is defined broadly. It covers anyone in the United States who was younger than 13 when they downloaded or used an app on the Google Play Store, at any point from April 1, 2015 through the present. There is no requirement that the app itself was marketed specifically to kids, and no list of specific apps to check against; the test is the user's age at the time, not which app it was.

Because the class window reaches back over a decade, it covers two different groups of people in practice. It covers families with a child who is currently under 13 and has used Google Play apps recently. It also covers people who were children on Google Play years ago and are adults now. Someone who was 11 years old in 2015 turns 22 in 2026, and would still potentially be a class member based on that earlier use.

A parent or guardian typically files the claim on behalf of a child who is still a minor. If you were the child in question and are now an adult, you can generally file for yourself. The official settlement site's FAQ page is the place to confirm exactly how to file depending on your situation, including what a parent needs to provide when claiming on a child's behalf.

How much you can realistically expect

There is no fixed dollar amount attached to this settlement, and no separate tier that pays more for documented losses. Every valid claimant receives a pro rata cash payment from the $8.25 million fund, and the settlement does not require documentation beyond the claim itself.

Pro rata means the fund is divided among everyone who files a valid claim, after court-approved fees, costs, and administration expenses are deducted. The more people who file, the smaller each individual payment; the fewer who file, the larger each payment. Nobody, including RecordingLaw.com, can tell you your exact payment before the claims window closes and that math is done.

How to file a claim

Filing happens only at the official settlement website. There is no cost to file, and the settlement's no-proof structure means confirming eligibility, not producing receipts or screenshots, is the main requirement.

If you are filing on behalf of a child, have the child's basic information ready and check the official FAQ page for the specific parental-filing steps, since most claims here will be filed by a parent rather than by the child directly. If anything on the form is unclear, the official site's FAQ page and administrator contact information are the right first stop.

Protecting a child's information beyond this settlement

This case is about tracking and data collection for advertising, not a breach that exposed Social Security numbers or financial account data, so it does not call for the same identity-theft response as a hacked database. Still, a few basic, free protections are worth knowing about if your child uses apps on Google Play.

A credit freeze blocks anyone from opening new credit in your child's name. Parents and guardians of children under 16 can request one for free at all three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It is one of the few identity-theft protections built specifically for minors, whose Social Security numbers are valuable to fraudsters precisely because nobody checks a child's credit for years.

If you ever suspect actual misuse of your child's information, whether connected to this case or something else entirely, IdentityTheft.gov is the federal government's free recovery site, not a paid monitoring service.

We are tracking this case

If the court denies final approval at the September 24, 2026 hearing, or the payout picture becomes clearer afterward, we will update this page and our data breach settlement tracker. For background on the broader rules governing how companies handle personal data, see our guide to data privacy laws. As of July 2026, the claim deadline is September 14, 2026; do not wait on the hearing date to file.