Being a teenager when COPPA went into effect and having a number of netfriends under 13 (at the time) - I'm not sure that employees at big companies really understand all the unintended consequences of it.
By far the most common consequence amongst my friends was to teach us to lie. (The second most common consequence was to shut us out of smaller websites that didn't want to deal with regulation - at least until we learned to lie.) "Are you under 13?" - duh, no. "Are you under 18?" - better answer no on that one too, to be safe. "How old are you?" - 20 is a good number. "What's your birthdate?" - how about Jan 1, 1970?
I had one friend who forgot her password to her Yahoo Mail account. "Why can't you just use the password reset functionality?" "I forgot which birthday I entered." "Why don't you call them up and have them reset it?" "I registered under a fake name too, and forgot what I put."
And she was one of the savvier ones. I saw a number of people post their street addresses, pictures of their house, vacations they were taking on the public Internet, but when it came to their ages, "I'm, uh, 24" (adding a decade and change).
People wonder why Millenials aren't more up-in-arms about data breaches and identity theft, and why they prefer pseudononymous currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum over the real banking system with its KYC requirements. Maybe it's because we've been trained to see identity as temporary, reputation as something that can only be used against you, and information as something you give out to get what you want at the moment.
> I'm not sure that employees at big companies really understand all the unintended consequences of it.
They knew - just like they know people don't read EULAs. They didn't care because it was CYA action that took the bullseye off their collective backs. Those that pretended to care requested "credit card age verification" to improve their funnel conversion.
That's what I'd always assumed, but taking madrox's comment at face value, it seems like the employees in question thought they were actually cleaning up the Internet. COPPA did no such thing; it just gave the appearance of cleaning up the Internet by making all children magically appear to be over 18 to those asking the question.
This thread conflates two problems: how identity is managed on the internet, and corporate responsibilities in the face of that.
True age verification on the internet is a funny business. Unless we get some kind of government-backed ID, you have to trust what the user is telling you. It's a company's responsibility to take reported age seriously. Lying on age breaks the user agreement no one reads.
But if you tell the truth, and you're using an app designed for kids, your data will be protected according to the law, which is very pro-consumer.
In the end, if you choose to lie about your identity on the internet, that's your business.
Reminds me of a story where PayPal froze some person’s account because they were not eighteen when they created the account. I read it here on hon. Maybe someone can find a link to the comment...
> People wonder why [Millennials] aren't more up-in-arms about data breaches and identity theft, and why they prefer [pseudo-anonymous] currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum over the real banking system with its KYC requirements.
As a millennial, I've always wondered about this. I'll hear coverage on NPR fairly regularly about the latest data breach, and I always feel like NPR is either a) pushing the outrage on me or b) assuming that I must be outraged, because I'm never outraged. I see pretty much everything I put online as public, even if there is a veil of privacy (like FB for example).
The ones that outrage me aren't the passwords being leaked, it's the SSN that I never put online in the first place but was shared by companies I trusted with companies I don't trust but had no choice or notification of.
My guess is that the useful intended consequence was that companies specifically targeting young people for exploitation would think twice. Everyone knows the young will sneak onto porn sites. But an enterprise that constructs an app to exploit kids in particular is going to feel a big target on it's back and rightfully so.
Edit: My guess you'd have to be millennial to think other generations didn't learn to lie to adults in a multitude of ways.
People wonder why Millenials aren't more up-in-arms about data breaches and identity theft, and why they prefer pseudononymous currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum over the real banking system with its KYC requirements.
I bet most Millenials barely know what the bitcoin is and are hoping Ethereum is some cool new drug.
By far the most common consequence amongst my friends was to teach us to lie. (The second most common consequence was to shut us out of smaller websites that didn't want to deal with regulation - at least until we learned to lie.) "Are you under 13?" - duh, no. "Are you under 18?" - better answer no on that one too, to be safe. "How old are you?" - 20 is a good number. "What's your birthdate?" - how about Jan 1, 1970?
I had one friend who forgot her password to her Yahoo Mail account. "Why can't you just use the password reset functionality?" "I forgot which birthday I entered." "Why don't you call them up and have them reset it?" "I registered under a fake name too, and forgot what I put."
And she was one of the savvier ones. I saw a number of people post their street addresses, pictures of their house, vacations they were taking on the public Internet, but when it came to their ages, "I'm, uh, 24" (adding a decade and change).
People wonder why Millenials aren't more up-in-arms about data breaches and identity theft, and why they prefer pseudononymous currencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum over the real banking system with its KYC requirements. Maybe it's because we've been trained to see identity as temporary, reputation as something that can only be used against you, and information as something you give out to get what you want at the moment.