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Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

android-developers.googleblog.com

241–250 of 549 posts

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#241
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not parents issue. That's why we go after people who sell or give drugs to kids. Is a serious offense, we don't wave our hands and say its parents problem and not drugging kids is a popular policy unlike drug enforcement for adults.

So sure, we go after anybody who gives or sells devices without basic parental controls directly to kids. So you need to be 18 to buy a phone, which we're 90% of the way to anyway with the way credit cards work. The fundamental point is that the Internet is not a daycare. All of these attempts to put the burden on sites boil down to changing this dynamic, recasting the Internet as if it should be appropriate to use a…

> Big tech wants this, so they can continue on with business as usual abusing adults' psyche and personal information.

I've said before and I'll say again that this approach (strict age gating) also is going to produce a slew of really vulnerable 18 year olds. If I were a sports gambling site, I'd be salivating at getting a fresh crop of 18 year old boys each year who have had zero opportunity to learn how to navigate the Internet and who are legally on the hook for everything they do.

OnlyFans, likewise, is going to work out great! Now the 17 year old girls turning 18 won't have access to things like the social media of former OF performers or access to any communities where sex workers discuss the downsides of their job or how to stay safe.

Have to protect the children, don't you know. That way they can be perfectly pure and innocent when they turn 18 and are ready to be exploited. Like fattening up cattle.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#242
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many schools in the US now, kids are issued mandatory iPads from age 5 and are required to use them to complete school assignments.

That is extremely upsetting.

Wait until you hear about the pepper-spraying drones being put into service in schools.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49091153

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#243
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't put barbed wire on random sidewalks and then blame parents if a kid walks over it and gets hurt. There is the attractive nuisance doctrine, among other things.

We don't leave the barbed wire on the side walk but require everyone that wants to walk on it to age verify first either. And the attractive nuisance doctrine some states have is absolutely bonkers.

Yes we do leave pubs on the sidewalk and require everyone that wants to drink there to age verify first, what are you talking about

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#244
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

being locked out = less profit = firing management by shareholders it will solve by consumers, don't worry

The number of people who are marginalised is... marginal. By definition it doesn't have a sensible impact on profit. That's precisely why it is a problem to be marginalised.

Isn’t that… life?

Even literal regulated electricity utilities aren’t expected to provide service to every last marginal customer.

For example, a poor old grandma missing many electricity bill payments usually will see leniency if she is polite, the utility eventually won’t try to collect cash anymore and instead put a lien on the home while continuing to provide service.

But if the billing department receives multiple threats from her, then they may just cut the service.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#246

Well, the API itself seems fairly well designed from a privacy perspective. It only shares age ranges, not specific ages, and only if you allow it. The data is also fuzzed to prevent an app from determining your exact birth date, and it's all tied in to the parental control system.[1] The problem remains though that, since the laws this feature was created to comply with put the onus on Google to verify the user's ag…

The API is tied to a Google account though. You can't simply install an app on Android and have Android tell it what the user's age is, it has to first have google maps, youtube, play services, etc. installed and you need to make an account and log in globally on your device before it can tell the app an age. I don't know that I'd call that a good design for an Android API

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#247
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So sure, we go after anybody who gives or sells devices without basic parental controls directly to kids. So you need to be 18 to buy a phone, which we're 90% of the way to anyway with the way credit cards work. The fundamental point is that the Internet is not a daycare. All of these attempts to put the burden on sites boil down to changing this dynamic, recasting the Internet as if it should be appropriate to use a…

> Big tech wants this, so they can continue on with business as usual abusing adults' psyche and personal information. I've said before and I'll say again that this approach (strict age gating) also is going to produce a slew of really vulnerable 18 year olds. If I were a sports gambling site, I'd be salivating at getting a fresh crop of 18 year old boys each year who have had zero opportunity to learn how to navigat…

Yes! And this dovetails into a point I really should have made as well. The thing about "age verification" (ie identity verification) is that it puts the decision of what kids should access wholly in the hands of corporate attorneys. For example we can easily imagine a "Facebook4Kidz" website that has many of the same terrible dynamics as regular Faceboot, but that Faceboot's attorneys can justify as being legally compliant. As a parent, you would really want to block this too - while all of these proposals for identity verification and site-based-control claim to solve the problem but leave you with no way to do that!

This ties into your comment because as a kid approaches adulthood, as a parent you also want to loosen those restrictions so that they can develop these skills - gradually while under your supervision. Whereas the corporate attorneys will just say that they're strictly off limits, right up until it's then open season as you're pointing out.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#248

I'm fundamentally opposed to age verification because it usually leads to mandatory account creation no matter how privacy friendly the age verification process itself may be. It's already extremely annoying that, for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account. Furthermore, the whole thing also reinforces monopolies. Once you've verified your age on one platform, the barrier to switch…

> for example, on YouTube, you can no longer watch many videos without an account.

I do not like this argument. Does an adult theater let anyone in without an ID? Do movie theaters let kids under 18 into an R rated movie without ID? Why do we think this should be different on the internet?

IMHO, they should have Youtube 18+ (Adult book store) where you need an ID and YouTube I think it is evil that YouTube enables kids access to both grooming and violent material.

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only acceptable solution would be for apps and websites to simply include a recommended age. Allowing parents to configure their children’s devices to block services that require users to be older than the specified age or that do not provide an age rating. I'm afraid you'd get the cookie banner problem but way worse. Everyone that's not Meta/Google/Apple would immediately add a legal CYA "18+" age rating and s…

That's how it should be. Make the Internet 18+ by default and sites targeted at younger audiences can add a more detailed rating. Let people configure their devices however they like it. The whole problem with the regulation we have right now is that it assumes the Internet is for kids, and everything for adults must be hidden. When we really just should declare the whole Internet as 18+ and the sites for kids should…

So kids shouldn’t have access to sites like Wikipedia? Banning the internet is not the correct solution many kids depend on the internet to have access to education.

The argument could be made for banning social media but the whole internet I don’t think it’s the correct approach

Re: Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year

#250
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is quite simple. You just don't verify it. The point isn’t to verify the age but to set the age on the device itself. If the parents set the age on the cell phone or computer, that setting is then used as the basis. The operating systems can be configured so that only the device administrator can change the age. Systemd already has a field for storing the age, which programs can read. If the child doesn’t…

Are you a parent? I have personally used the parental controls on Android, iOS and ChromeOS and to be honest they are terrible. Issues with syncing changes, the terrible UX for parental access control (iOS...), issues around audit/access logs, issues around prompting the parent for access. I am honestly shocked that Apple known for its polished experience hasn't been forced by angry parents. My daughter's school actu…

Being parent is not supposed to be easy
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