Disney Got Fined $10M for Tracking Kids—Your Inbox Uses the Same Tricks
The tracking techniques that triggered a federal investigation against Disney are the same methods that spy pixels use to monitor your Gmail inbox every day.
What Disney Did Wrong
In January 2026, a federal court finalized a settlement requiring Disney to pay a $10 million civil penalty for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The case, brought by the FTC and Department of Justice, revealed a troubling pattern of deception.
Disney failed to properly label hundreds of its YouTube videos as "Made for Kids." This seemingly minor administrative oversight had major consequences: it allowed YouTube to collect personal data from children under 13 and serve them targeted advertisements based on their viewing behavior.
When YouTube's "Made for Kids" system is properly enabled, certain tracking features are automatically disabled. Comments are blocked. Personalized ads don't appear. Most importantly, the platform stops collecting behavioral data from young viewers.
By mislabeling its content, Disney essentially bypassed these protections. Children watching Disney videos were tracked, profiled, and monetized—all without their parents ever knowing or consenting.
The Same Tracking Lives in Your Inbox
Here's what should concern every Gmail user: the tracking techniques Disney exploited are fundamentally identical to what happens in your inbox.
When you open a marketing email, invisible spy pixels—tiny 1x1 transparent images—phone home to the sender's servers. In that instant, they capture:
- Your IP address (revealing your approximate location)
- Your device type and operating system
- Your email client
- The exact timestamp of when you read the message
Over 50% of emails contain these hidden trackers. The "Hey" email service reported blocking spy pixels in approximately 600,000 out of every million messages it processes daily. Research shows that invisible tracking pixels appear on over 94% of domains studied.
Just like Disney's mislabeled videos, these email trackers operate without meaningful consent. You never agreed to be monitored. You were never told it was happening. The tracking just occurs silently every time you open a message.
Why This Pattern Keeps Repeating
Disney's $10 million fine is actually part of a larger enforcement trend. In 2019, Google and YouTube paid $170 million for similar COPPA violations. Microsoft paid $20 million in 2023 for tracking children through Xbox signups.
The pattern reveals an uncomfortable truth: surveillance based advertising is so profitable that companies treat fines as a cost of doing business.
Consider the math. Disney generates billions in advertising revenue. A $10 million penalty is a rounding error—far less expensive than properly implementing privacy protections or sacrificing the valuable behavioral data that fuels targeted advertising.
The same economics drive email tracking. Marketing platforms charge premium rates for open tracking, click tracking, and behavioral analytics. When a company can know exactly when you read their email, what device you used, and where you were located, that intelligence translates directly into advertising dollars.
The COPPA Connection to Email
COPPA specifically defines "persistent identifiers"—like tracking cookies and IP addresses—as personal information that requires parental consent before collection from children. The law recognizes that these identifiers can be used to track individuals across different websites and services over time.
Email tracking pixels function exactly the same way. They create persistent records of your behavior, building profiles that follow you across your digital life.
The 2026 COPPA amendments expand protections further, adding biometric identifiers and government issued IDs to the definition of personal information. Regulated entities must comply by April 22, 2026.
But here's the gap: while children receive some legal protection from invisible tracking (at least in theory), adults receive almost none. The same surveillance techniques that triggered a federal investigation when used on kids watching Disney videos are completely legal when used on you reading your morning newsletter.
How to Stop the Tracking
The Disney case demonstrates that even billion dollar companies with armies of lawyers will cut corners on privacy when it's profitable. Expecting them to voluntarily stop tracking you is unrealistic.
The only reliable solution is to block the tracking yourself.
Gmail's native option to "Ask before displaying external images" provides some protection but creates friction—you'll need to manually approve images in every email. More importantly, it doesn't address click tracking, where marketers monitor every link you tap.
Extensions like Gblock take a more comprehensive approach. By detecting and blocking spy pixels before they load, they prevent that initial phone home moment when your data gets harvested. Click tracking protection anonymizes your link clicks, preventing senders from knowing when and where you engaged with their content.
The Bigger Picture
Disney's settlement sends a message that tracking children has consequences—eventually. But the underlying surveillance infrastructure remains intact, humming along in your inbox right now.
The techniques are identical. The lack of consent is identical. The only difference is who's being watched.
Until email privacy receives the same regulatory attention as children's online privacy, protecting yourself means taking action. Companies have proven they'll track you until forced to stop. The Disney case shows that even major brands will exploit loopholes, mislabel content, and collect data improperly when there's money to be made.
Your inbox doesn't need to be part of that equation.