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Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

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Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#11

Post by user3939382 »

Hizonner wrote: post #3

Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)? If so, why? Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data. Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6…

My "birthday" is January 1, 1970 (an homage to unix) for any database/system inappropriately asking. This way they don't have my data to leak or abuse, but I still know what I specified if I'm asked to verify it.

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#12

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

Hizonner wrote: post #3

Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)? If so, why? Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data. Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6…

> Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18

For websites that respect COPPA, under-13 might be your best bet for less targeting

ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#14

Post by kibwen »

soperj wrote: post #5
Hizonner wrote: post #3

Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)? If so, why? Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data. Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6…

I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry at 8 or 9 years old. They'd test you to make sure you were over 18 but if you said you were over 99, it would just reply "No you're not" and boot you. I don't remember what they'd do if you said you were under 18, I don't know if I was dumb enough to ever try it once.

Here's Leisure Suit Larry's age quiz, consisting of pop culture questions that would have suggested adulthood back in 1987: https://allowe.com/games/larry/tips-manuals/lsl1-age-quiz.ht...

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#15

Post by dymk »

Age and gender are the two highest signals that targeted ads take into account. The Facebook growth team has always wanted to remove gathering age / gender from the sign-up flow (which reduces friction to sign up). But, ad targeting would take such a large hit, they could never do so.

It was a huge deal internally when "Custom" was added as a gender option in the sign-up flow, and even then, there's a nudge towards the binary to retain better ad targeting.

In addition to that, companies wants you to acknowledge that you're over 13 so they can be more loosey-goosey with data collection (thanks California!).

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#18

Post by Hizonner »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #12
Hizonner wrote: post #3

Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)? If so, why? Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data. Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6…

> Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18 For websites that respect COPPA, under-13 might be your best bet for less targeting ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...

Yeah, but the problem is that it often locks you out of the site completely, which they don't tell you until you've answered. And when it doesn't, it often breaks features or locks down your access to content.

I guess in theory it could also trigger them to ask for a note from your parents...

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#19

Post by dmonitor »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #9

Tiktok asked for my birthday and I couldn't navigate away from the page. I uninstalled and reinstalled the app to try and circumvent entering a birthday. They banned my account. This account was active for 2+ years and they out of the blue REQUIRED a birthday like wth.

that might have been compliance with some law regarding showing content to children

Re: Disney+ demands users’ age and gender so it can “deliver targeted advertising”

#20

Post by basch »

Hizonner wrote: post #3

Does ANYBODY EVER provide an accurate response to a question like that (except when there's reason to believe they can detect it and do something to your detriment if you lie)? If so, why? Anybody who asks deserves to be chaffed into oblivion with garbage data. Especially, who would be dumb enough to admit to being under 18, or, worse, under 13? An 8 year old should see the obvious reasons not to do that. A bright 6…

Have you ever given the wrong information, and then later needed to use it as some type of security / identity verification?

I know I've run into it at least once, I think maybe Microsoft, where having an unknown birth date on the account became a huge headache.

Lesson learned. Write stuff like this down in a vault too.

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