Hacker News Reader

Comment by discardedrefuse | Hacker News Reader

I've had the same Google account since time immemorial. About a year ago, Google started hassling me to hand over my date of birth. I had long lived without access to "mature" Youtube content. But now Google began bombarding me with pop ups on my Android phone. I kept refusing. In retaliation, Google took my ancient GMail account hostage, blocking access behind an unskippable demand for my DOB. I had no choice but to cave and provide them with a date. I was livid.

Now that months have passed and my jets have cooled, I would like to take a moment and speak directly to Google:

Thanks Google. You finally gave me the push I needed to pack my bags and leave. I've completely de-googled my life and encourage everyone to do the same. You're an evil company. Anything positive you may have contributed to society has been long eclipsed by the damage you've done in your quest to subjugate the web. In short; good riddance and get fucked.

View on HN

Google has to do this to comply with COPPA. They had to pay a $200m fine in '19 due to users that weren't age-checked.

Yep, and any other company he signs up for that doesn't ask for this basic piece of information is breaking the law.

I don't remember ycombinator asking for my DOB when I created an HN account...

No, but I think it informed me in text that I had to be above a certain age?

No just enter an email and username.

No, you don't need to enter an email.

Nonsense, "you must be at least 13 years old to use this service" has been standard T&C since time immemorial. It is not a basic piece of information either, it's a big piece of identity theft. So not that I'd even give any online service my real DoB anyway.

Just read through some COPPA stuff. It looks like you could comply with a simple checkbox for "I am over <magic age>", which would be less information for the panopticon.

I'm no lawyer and can't say whether Google complied in a minimal fashion or not. But maybe not. [Edit: Checkboxes are insufficient, apparently]

Their implementation has to comply with laws in other countries too. Plenty of countries consider a checkbox too easy to accidentally tick, whereas asking for DOB requires a user to actively make up information, committing fraud if the information is false.

Also, you know, since Google knows the account age and all other information about the user it should be able to give an educated guess about the users age

But apparently Google's knowing that you're a right-handed tae-kwon-do enthusiast that flies every month is not sufficient for them to maybe think you're not a minor.

Does it matter what Google knows? Is a state regulator going to accept "Trust us, the algorithm says they're adults" when they come knocking?

It might be fraud for a child to give a false birthday to get access to an adult service (or vice versa) but it's not fraud merely to give a bogus birthday.

Google used to allow you to do just that and it was determined to be inadequate and was partially why they were fined $200 million.

Nice to know :-)

Any idea why that was deemed as inadequate? General lawyery assholeness or something genuine?

FWIW, I'm always happy to give my dob to these websites. Its the epoch of course. Memorable for me and boring for them.

When you've had the same account for 20 years, they can probably assume you are an adult.

Google runs the play store. The play store requires a credit card. No one under the COPPA age can legally own a credit card. We should have been done there. And if we're talking purely gmail, a binding "please confirm you are over <age>. Note: this is a legally binding answer and Google reserves the right to delete your account if provided with incorrect information" should be more than enough. Google does not need a full date of birth. But boy howdy do they want it for advertisement purposes.

The Play Store doesn't require a credit card, at least not in the U.S. I have a Google account that I use for testing on an Pixel phone. When I go to install a new (free) app, it nags me to add a payment method to my account. But I can skip the prompt and download the app.

Play store requires a credit card to verify age for apps like tinder.

if you've never bought an app on the App store, you're not really using your modern pocket computer to its fullest. Most of the good apps, and good games, cost money.

(as they should)

Why they are not satisfied with a year of birth then?

On YouTube they're now demanding a credit card number to verify I'm over 18. I guess someone said a swear word in the video I'm trying to watch. Yeah not giving them my credit card number.

Use privacy.com to generate a debit card with a limit of $1 if you ever need to. But i understand it’s also the principle of the thing and you might not want to even give a fake card with a $1 limit.

> Instantly assuming everyone is american

If you live in the EU, I believe that YouTube is forced under law to ask for your credit card number as part of verifying your age. Thank your country's lawmakers and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.

> ...ask for your credit card number as part of verifying your age.

and verifying that your financial/documentation circumstances permit you to qualify for a credit card in the first place, too. Nice way to gatekeep out the "undesirable underprivileged" user base not worth marketing to...

Whenever someone is searching for my name on Google they get my full birth date with year at the right side Google "knowledge panel".

It is incredibly unnerving to me.

By what source do Google claim to know my exact birth date?

The only way I can theoretically change this is if I "claim" this "knowledge panel" which involves sending more personal information to Google without guaranteeing anything.

A month ago I was asked in a surprise email to verify my age for YouTube with a credit card, which I did to avoid landing in support hell later on, because I publish browser extensions with the Google account.

I rarely log in, and I wasn't using the Google account at the time the email was sent, nor do I ever use the attached YouTube account. The card was saved in Google Payments without my consent.

You're in the UK right? The UK has a law requiring this, although it isn't currently enforced.

I live in the EU. Their support page mentions that they will ask for age verification when you attempt to watch a restricted video, but I was not using the YouTube account.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10070779

Then there's also the question of creating a payment profile for the user without consent.

> If you enter your credit card info for age verification, Google will retain this data as necessary to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

https://support.google.com/accounts?p=age-verify

Meeting legal requirements is very different from saving your card in Google Payments, which then you can readily use to buy products in any Google service.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com