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Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

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Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#41

Post by yanw »

danilocampos wrote: post #18

B-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.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#42

Post by danilocampos »

Kylekramer wrote: post #40
danilocampos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to believe the ad wasn't titled "Dear Sophie's Account Held by Myself, Her Father, Not to be Handed Over to Sophie until such time as she meets Google's User Age Threshold for Regulatory Compliance." "Dear Sophie" does have a much nicer ring to it, I guess.

"Dear Sophie" pretty clearly implies it isn't Sophie's account to me. When you write an letter (especially one that hasn't been sent yet as the commercial implies), you are the owner of the letter, right? To cite the Bible, it is Paul's letters to the Corinthians, not the Corinthians' letters from Paul.

Leaving aside my glee that we must reach into mythology (edited, thanks rubidium) to help Google's case, any letter that begins "Dear Sophie" sounds like it's a letter... to Sophie. And while she might not be able to read it right now, my initial guess as to why would be that infants don't have great reading comprehension, not that Google can't find an algorithm to get around COPPA.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#44

Post by shinratdr »

Tangaroa wrote: post #31
thenextcorner wrote: post #10

This is why you should take control of your own data, and not let your data in the hands of a company. Buy your own email address, set up your own blog self hosted.

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done for people who can't afford hosting fees or who don't understand how everything works and would not know where to start working on something like that. People go to the free services because they're free of charge and often far easier to set up than rolling your own.

Not to mention better. To get a gmail level of features and service, I would have to spend an arm and a leg. It's a completely unrealistic solution.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#45

Post by danilocampos »

yanw wrote: post #41
danilocampos wrote: post #18

B-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.

The fact that it makes Google look bad doesn't impact its fairness. I acknowledged that that's not an illegitimate way to run the business.

But that doesn't really matter to a little girl whose correspondence with loved ones has disappeared down a black hole. That despair is as reasonable as Google's indifference. And, it points to a great opportunity to make a reliable mail service that addresses the needs of the ever-growing population of young people who will need email long before it is regulatorily convenient to Google.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#46

Post by portentint »

Not sure I'd blame Google as much as COPPA, and the politicians who think parents can't make this choice on their own.

Of course, our kids can still find p0rn, violence and who-knows-what-else online with no filtering whatsoever. But at least they can't blog about it.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#47

Post by wicknicks »

quanticle wrote: post #7

To be honest, I think a large part of the blame goes to COPPA. I remember listening on those hearings, and those opposed to COPPA warned against this exact thing happening. They said that taking the decision away from parents would lead to disaster, and guess what, it has . Rather than blaming Google here, shouldn't we be writing our legislators to repeal COPPA? We should be telling them that this misguided law is st…

COPPA seems ridiculous and naive. Its harder for a kid to access GMail/Facebook than a porn site! I don't think Google is not to blame here. They should have sent a warning to the daughter's email address atleast. Tomorrow all someone needs to kill my account is to crack into it, and change my date or birth -- and let Google do the rest.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#48

Post by DanBC »

codexon wrote: post #38
RexRollman wrote: post #4

It is really sad that Google can't figure out a way for those under 13 to have accounts, provided there is a parent signing off on it. And the first comment by someone about how their child can't log onto their Chromebook anymore is particularly disturbing.

Advertising to kids is a low to non-profit activity.

What?

That's nonsense - look at the hours of merchandise promotion across dozens of channels. Toys is billions of dollars per year.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#49

Post by chrisjsmithuk »

pyre wrote: post #26
thenextcorner wrote: post #10

This is why you should take control of your own data, and not let your data in the hands of a company. Buy your own email address, set up your own blog self hosted.

What would you suggest for comparable calendar and contact management software?

Genuinely speaking the following works for me:

Calendar: A moleskine. Based on the amount of times I haven't had access to "the cloud" or my phone is DOA (less of an issue now I've downgraded to a Nokia 6303), this has saved my ass over and over.

Contact management: My phone SIM in my Nokia 6303.

Re: Hey Google, thanks for making my daughter cry.

#50

Post by TillE »

ck2 wrote: post #32

So - 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.

That should be SOP in any case. Just takes a few clicks to make Thunderbird sync everything from IMAP (Account Settings -> Synchronization & Storage).
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