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Comment by byoogle | Hacker News Reader

> Google [will] delete your account with no recourse if you admit you’re only 10.

The US gov is mostly responsible here, not Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pro...

When Electric Minds was running under my administration, I had a policy that we would delete any account from someone we knew to be under 13, just because the requirements for dealing with the personal information of children under 13 were way too onerous and resource-intensive for the operation we were running. Our policy explicitly stated, "This is a consequence of the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and Electric Minds is not responsible for this law or its effects." (In other words, "This may be bullcrap, and we may even believe it's bullcrap, but we've got to follow it anyway, so life sucks like that.")

Keeping your account on somebody else's server is mostly responsible, because that makes it vulnerable to nonsense like this. Google is very much oriented toward everyone keeping their accounts on somebody else's servers, ideally Google's. That's what I object to.

I generally try to avoid starting sentences like this, but here goes:

No. Just no. 10 year olds probably don't have the resources to run their own hardware, insofar as 10 year olds don't earn money, can't own property (in a legal sense), and are not wholly responsible for their own actions. Therefore, a 10 year old having an account with a 3rd party unbeknownst to the parents is a security / child protection / legal nightmare.

Saying "keeping your account on somebody else's server is mostly responsible" is disingenuous because the 10 year old has to keep their account on somebody else's server.

Edit: clarity

I am disappointed in the extreme level of rudeness in your response. I note that it seems to be occasioned by your not having been able to understand my message, with the result that the person whose dishonesty you are attacking exists only inside your own head.

10-year-olds can keep their data on their own server as easily as they can keep their books in their own bedroom in their own house, sleep in their own bed, call their parents on their own cellphone, and edit videos on their own computer. While the 10-year-old may not have legal title to any real estate, it is not therefore necessary for them to live in an institution. They can live with their family.

Hopefully that clarifies my message for anyone else who may have misunderstood it.

Who's responsible for the actions and security of a minor and their property? Can a minor enter in to contracts for services to connect the physical infrastructure to the outside world? Can a minor hold insurance policies against loss or damage to 3rd parties? Should a minor be tasked with the responsibility of keeping their belongings and data safe?

> They can live with their family.

Or legal guardian. That's my point. Children probably do need protecting, so their guardians are tasked, legally, with those responsibilities. Therefore, ownership, security, consequences of actions, etc., aren't clear cut when it comes to children.

> 10 year olds probably don't have the resources to run their own hardware, insofar as 10 year olds don't earn money, can't own property (in a legal sense), and are not wholly responsible for their own actions.

10 year olds can own property, legally.

Additionally they may also legally earn money. How else would children appear in movies?

The particulars vary by state, but here's a quick glimpse as to the federal perspective: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/026.htm

And of course one may work for one's self (start a startup) at any age.

I see your objection as taking the concept of individual ownership a tad too literally.

First, there's the family (or guardian) unit. Unless you're advising every individual person on Earth to run their own individual computing infrastructure.

Kragen's argument isn't for an atomized Internet, but for a decentralized one. If that means that there are local hubs or clusters that a neighborhood of 10 y.o.s could access and use, it would be a vastly better world than one in which only a handful of giants provided equivalent services.

You're also showing an impressive lack of imagination in terms of what it is to have an online presence. A decentralized structure with a cache-and-forward, high-replication, mesh-net structure could well function from minimal personal investments as a point-of-entry. A smartphone, or even feature phone, could well be sufficient hardware to enter into the system. I'm seeing Android devices priced in the $20-40 range. There are very inexpensive servers which offer similar functionality.

There's another economic class which is comparable in means to your hypothetical 10 year old as well: the vast underclasses of the world, with annual incomes ranging from $200 - $2000/year. Even among these, access to minimal levels of technology is highly sought simply because it hugely reduces the costs, and provides tremendous values, from communications.

Outernet (featured a few times on HN) is one example of an information service which is aimed at this population, with concerns over cost, energy access, censorship, surveillance, and content quality. It's a broadcast mechanism, but with some sort of mesh-net response network, it could well turn into a bidirectional system (there's also investigation of making the service itself bidirection).

WTF how about keeping it on your fully decentralized family server, hosted "on premise" and backed up to your friends house?

I think that was the point in that article.

That act was passed by elected officials

And google pays for lobbying. Interesting that most bills are written by private companies. I wonder what bills google wrote and gave to these "elected" officials.

Google isn't paying millions in lobbying for nothing.

Bet you $100 that if Google lobbied about that bill, they lobbied against it.

The bill was enacted less than seven weeks after Google was founded, at a time when users couldn't sign in to Google at all. (The Senate had approved it less than a month after Google was founded.) It's somewhat hard to believe that they had a lobbyist working on the issue in the company's first month of existence.

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this bizarre discussion, Seth. I miss you.

Sorry, my post was bad. I did not mean google lobbied for that bill because that would be impossible. I meant it as a general statement. That many of these bills are written by private companies. Google definately works on legislation.

Thank you! To be more clear, I was not saying google lobbied for that bill. Though re-reading what I wrote, I admit can be confused for that.

What you say may be true, but I very much doubt that Google would lobby for a law that creates headaches for them. COPPA compliance is a major PITA. I doubt any business would lobby for such onerous requirements.

Hardly. Google could simply ask the children to fax in signed permission statements from their parents, as websites that actually make an effort to support child users do. Neopets had this figured out 15 years ago. Google chooses not to do that despite having the resources, and they are responsible for the consequences of that decision.

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