I remember being on the internet since I was about 10 and I always said I was over 18 for whatever I did on the internet because I knew otherwise there would be restrictions. Is this a hard concept to grasp?
Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
81–90 of 199 posts
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#82B-b-but Google made this fancy video advertisement about how I can give my infant daughter a Gmail account and write to her as she grows up! Does it only work if she never uses it? You've gotta wait until you can hold a bat mitzvah to hand it off to her? This kind of chicanery is why I can only chuckle when Google announces new initiatives that require significant customer service, like selling telephones or providin…
That is not entirely fair, automation is the only way to admin millions of users and when nonsensical factors like COPPA get introduced to the system this happens. And I don't think that they did anything wrong here considering the consequences of not complying with the law.
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Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#83So - when was the last time everyone reading this backed up their gmail? Take the next 5 minutes to install thunderbird (you'll be impressed if you have not seen it in years) and enter the IMAP settings for google and download everything in the background while you work. When your account gets hacked and you lose everything, you'll appreciate the backup.
This is a great idea, I just set it up on a spare box using Matt Cutts' instructions for getmail and POP3.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/backup-gmail-in-linux-with-get...
If anybody else tries this, I'd recommend sticking with POP3 as getmail's IMAP client seems to mark all your messages as read (not cool).
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google isn't just a communication system, though. They're a very large corporation involved in numerous enterprises that often interfere with one another, and their actions are further modified by an even larger legal system that only imperfectly represents the collective will of its constituents. Decisions are often (indeed, perhaps mostly) made without any consideration of individual people (even the people making…
> Google isn't just a communication system, though. Gmail is. It's not positioned with anything like the complexity you describe. So it's not unreasonable, as OP suggested it was, for a user to want to use it, without giving much thought to age.
> It's not positioned with anything like the complexity you describe.
I'm afraid that this is, at least to the best of my ability to judge, simply wrong. Gmail is affected by the rules of operation at Google, and by the law. They certainly could address the issue with more compassion, but only at the cost of further increasing the complexity of their system. Everything is a trade-off.
> So it's not unreasonable, as OP suggested it was, for a user to want to use it, without giving much thought to age.
I didn't say it was "unreasonable." Just that the system isn't set up to allow it. It could be, but it currently isn't.
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#85An example of a United States-based website that has a user-friendly COPPA procedure for opening parent-approved accounts for users under age thirteen is the Art of Problem Solving,
https://www.artofproblemsolving.com/
a site that many HN users may like, especially if they have children, because of its many resources for learning mathematics. It's regrettable that Google doesn't follow this example.
How is Google's behavior in this reported instance consistent with Google's claimed support for data liberation?
http://www.dataliberation.org/
And how is the lack of notice and lack of help for parents who approve of their children having email accounts (not to mention Google's apparently contrary advertising campaigns) consistent with a policy of "Don't be evil"?
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google isn't just a communication system, though. Gmail is. It's not positioned with anything like the complexity you describe. So it's not unreasonable, as OP suggested it was, for a user to want to use it, without giving much thought to age.
> It's not positioned with anything like the complexity you describe. I'm afraid that this is, at least to the best of my ability to judge, simply wrong. Gmail is affected by the rules of operation at Google, and by the law. They certainly could address the issue with more compassion, but only at the cost of further increasing the complexity of their system. Everything is a trade-off. > So it's not unreasonable, as O…
Oh, I meant marketing positioning. That is, Google doesn't tell users holy crap this is a byzantine system of laws and mousetraps and shit!
They just say Gmail is neat, and it's free, so use it.
But, of course you're right, the creation of the sausage that is Gmail is a very complicated sequence, beset by both internal and external bureaucracy, to say nothing of the technical challenges in maintaining it.
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#87B-b-but Google made this fancy video advertisement about how I can give my infant daughter a Gmail account and write to her as she grows up! Does it only work if she never uses it? You've gotta wait until you can hold a bat mitzvah to hand it off to her? This kind of chicanery is why I can only chuckle when Google announces new initiatives that require significant customer service, like selling telephones or providin…
This is absurd. Instead of not collecting data for children Google is blocking access to children. I am seriously looking for alternatives to Gmail. Any suggestions? I don't want my email account hooked up to a social network and advertising machinery.
This may be a bit out there, but how about paying for email services?
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like a very straightforward solution to me. If an account is created for a person under-age, suspend ad service to that account (end data collection) and require a nominal fee to activate it (which provides abundant evidence of parental consent). Cutting off the next generation from email does not seem like the answer. Would a Montessori-educated, eight-year-old Sergey Brin have appreciated such treatment? S…
knowing the childs email address in and of itself appears to be data collection in regards to COPPA. http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus45-how-comply-childrens...
Which means it would be impossible to provide an email service to a child, right, short of self-hosting?
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#89You're the Product.
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"Focus on the user and all else will follow" is still number one at http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html
Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
knowing the childs email address in and of itself appears to be data collection in regards to COPPA. http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus45-how-comply-childrens...
Which means it would be impossible to provide an email service to a child, right, short of self-hosting?
I don't think so, its just that you'd have to obtain parental consent 100% of the time. Data gathering is baked into providing an email service, that part of COPPA seems logical enough to me. The issue of targeted ads vs untargeted ads vs no ads doesn't appear to have anything to do with anything, other than what you'd notify the parents you are doing, and what you are asking their consent of.