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Comment by yanw | Hacker News Reader

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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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.

Disney manages to provide good customer service for the millions of real-life humans that walk its theme parks annually. Google's problem is not that it can't be done, but that it's unprofitable to provide customer service when your business model consists of making a few pennies here and there.

Disney also does the same with tens of millions of online kids with Club Penguin

That's a terrible analogy and if you want to go there, Disney has made plenty of little girls cry every day.

I'm addressing the claim that automation is the only way to service millions of users. Whether people cry despite having the ability to receive personalized service is orthogonal to the point.

If Google charged hundreds of dollars for each user they could surely afford a bubbly teenager to provide personalized service too. They're completely separate businesses and models, there is no comparing the two.

From the post:

> They provide COPPA compliant email accounts for children under 13 from their Apps for Education domains.

The capability is obviously there, and apparently COPPA has a way for parents to provide consent.

Amazon has quite an awesome service actually for the few times I had to deal with them. They also have quite a few users. Oh, but right, those are actually customers paying for what they get. I guess Google support is what you get for using a free service after all.

In many ways, we are paying customers of Google as well. We are exchanging very valuable data for Google's services.

So here's where the problem occurs with the law and Google's business model.

Android...... Where does it say anywhere that Android devices can only be sold to those old enough not to be covered by COPPA?

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