[HN Gopher] Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling k...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Google sought fellow tech giants' help in stalling kids' privacy
       protections
        
       Author : koolba
       Score  : 314 points
       Date   : 2021-10-23 09:50 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.politico.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.politico.com)
        
       | hliyan wrote:
       | Feels like something that should be handled at the client, rather
       | than having even more personal info sent to servers. Perhaps
       | something like a face-id that automatically switches the entire
       | device a kids' profile.
        
       | ganzuul wrote:
       | Goddamn traitors of the species.
        
       | m0zg wrote:
       | Twitter threads on this are rather eye opening, if folks haven't
       | seen them, check them out. If this shit is proven in court (and
       | if the judge doesn't hold a large position in defendants, as the
       | case may be), Google / FB could face some _serious_, life
       | changing repercussions.
       | 
       | I knew FB / Google Ads was a hive of scum and villainy (but
       | would, nonetheless, accept the paycheck generated by all that),
       | but did not think it was quite this bad. Much like when the
       | varnish started cracking on both Google and Apple when Eric
       | Schmidt fired the recruiter due to Steve Jobs' displeasure.
       | 
       | [1] https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164
        
         | theduder99 wrote:
         | amazing thread, thanks for sharing.
        
         | gonzo41 wrote:
         | That's a great twitter thread!
        
           | m0zg wrote:
           | You can already see how Google/FB PR shills are trying to
           | narrow down the fallout in the press (and on this site) by
           | pretending this is only (or mostly) about kids' privacy,
           | whereas the real story is rather severely anticompetitive
           | behavior, collusion, and price fixing in ad exchanges, and
           | privacy is merely a footnote in a War and Peace thick tome of
           | alleged wrongdoing. The actual story is 100x bigger, but you
           | wouldn't even know if you hadn't read that twitter thread.
           | This is called "shaping".
        
       | cletus wrote:
       | I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg "don't be
       | evil" comments) commenters here just looking for confirmation
       | bias because this is a difficult issue.
       | 
       | First, kids use sites and apps when they're below the ToS age
       | (usually 18 or sometimes 13, at least in the US). How are you
       | meant to know that as a service provider? Don't get me wrong: it
       | doesn't excuse you from doing due diligence. There's such a thing
       | as wanton disregard for the truth. But we all know under 18s use
       | IG, Snapchat, Tinder, etc. I'm not sure fining a company billions
       | of dollars and putting executives in jail is the outcome anyone
       | really wants if a 17 year old uses Tinder.
       | 
       | Second, what is personal information, exactly? It's not as
       | obvious as you might think to the point where lawyers who work
       | for these companies can't agree among themselves. There are
       | obvious things (eg IP addresses, dates of birth, SSNs, addresses,
       | names). But what about media? Photos, videos and sound files may
       | all contain PII, technically.
       | 
       | Third, some will say "well don't store anything". Well, if a
       | photo contains PII (which it can) then you can't operate a photo-
       | sharing service at all for risk of storing PII of children. Also,
       | this ignores legal obligations. If the Feds show up with a
       | warrant about a particular user's actions then the argument "we
       | log/store nothing" won't get you as far as you think.
       | 
       | So I'm not saying Google didn't do wrong here but knowing the
       | complexities I am sympathetic to the idea of resisting broad
       | legislative overreach as you can end up with bad laws that do
       | just that.
       | 
       | And if we're going to start singling out tech giants for lobbying
       | Congress, my question is why them in particular? We currently
       | have a Senate that is essentially beholden to the personal
       | interests of one unelected rich guy: Charles Koch. Koch lobbies
       | against health care, taxes on the rich and infrastructure in the
       | Senate. Around the country, he has been instrumental in defeating
       | public transit and many other initiatives in many cities.
        
         | tchalla wrote:
         | > I'm not sure fining a company billions of dollars and putting
         | executives in jail is the outcome anyone really wants if a 17
         | year old uses Tinder.
         | 
         | A provider offers a service is responsible to ensure it
         | functions within the law. The "How" is the responsibility of
         | the provider. If they can't do it, they can explicitly state
         | they can not do so and work with the government to find
         | constructive solutions. If they absolutely can not, it means
         | that they have to bear the consequence of the law. If they
         | can't accept the consequence, they can decide to shut shop.
        
           | classified wrote:
           | It would be nice if things actually worked that way.
        
           | cletus wrote:
           | > A provider offers a service is responsible to ensure it
           | functions within the law.
           | 
           | This is what I like to call "engineer thinking" (and I say
           | this as an engineer). By this I mean it's absolute.
           | 
           | The law doesn't work that way and when it does, it tends to
           | be terrible unjust and illogical (eg mandatory minimum
           | sentences, three strikes laws).
           | 
           | Here's how it actually works: because of the nature of your
           | service users need to be able to give consent for legal
           | reasons. It may be possible to provide such a service to
           | under-18s but the legal compliance may be a significant
           | amount of effort. Or it may be impossible.
           | 
           | Already we've run into a problem because what about
           | emancipated minors? They can, by definition, give legal
           | consent. You may choose to ignore this corner case because
           | it's too hard. That may be fine or it might not. You may be
           | accused of unfairly denying services in certain segments of
           | the population. Depending on your service, you may even run
           | into legal trouble.
           | 
           | Assuming you're a good actor, you make a "best effort" to
           | comply with the age restriction. You may ask for certain
           | personal information or even run a credit check. Certain
           | things can only be done in person, perhaps just the first
           | time, perhaps every time.
           | 
           | If it ever comes up that you provided services to minors and
           | there were legal consequences (civil or criminal), a court
           | would ultimately look at the balance of evidence to decide if
           | your actions were sufficient given the consequences of
           | noncompliance, the harm you could've done and so on (note:
           | the standards are different criminally and civilly too).
           | 
           | So if you provide a hook up app and just ask "Are you over
           | 18? Y/N" and have lots of profile pictures of suspiciously
           | young people, lots of mentions of high school and so forth
           | then it can be decided that you had a reckless disregard for
           | your legal obligations and be fined or charged criminally. A
           | court may also decide your actions were "reasonable" (this
           | word comes up a lot). For example: you tried to verify them
           | with a Facebook profile (with efforts to make sure it wasn't
           | fake), you monitored photos and profiles for certain keywords
           | and so on. That could satisfy your legal requirements even if
           | it wasn't perfect.
           | 
           | It's the difference between a bank who sometimes unknowingly
           | facilitates criminal financial transactions vs a bank that
           | has flagrant disregard for the law. There are banks that will
           | charge you 15-20% for a wire transfer, for example. No
           | legitimate customer would ever pay that. It's clearly aimed
           | at people who don't want any questions or scrutiny. This will
           | land you in jail. The first won't.
        
             | tchalla wrote:
             | > This is what I like to call "engineer thinking" (and I
             | say this as an engineer). By this I mean it's absolute.
             | 
             | Ironically, you called my thinking as absolute and went
             | ahead to do the very same thing you called "Engineer
             | Thinking". Nothing in my comment above contradicts your
             | comment. Your effort to explain HOW in detail is admirable.
             | However, I wish you hadn't created a label on my way of
             | thinking. It doesn't help a discussion.
        
           | GauntletWizard wrote:
           | The law is responsible for being just and reasonable, and not
           | fining people for things they have no control over. There's
           | no sure way to verify that a user is over 18[1], and I do
           | believe that there's responsibility on parents to be
           | monitoring their children - That if a 13 year old is creating
           | accounts on over-18 websites, it is partially the parent's
           | failing for allowing them too much unmonitored access.
           | 
           | Quite frankly: I want 17 year olds to use Tinder, figure out
           | how it works, and understand the problems therein. I want
           | kids to be able to tip their toe in anonymously to adult
           | activities. Any hard-line requirements create a nice hard
           | line - People who have no experience with X, and people who
           | are expected to be experts with X - And that's how you create
           | a feeding ground for predators. 17 year olds don't have to be
           | able to recognize that a 40-year old man who's hitting on
           | them despite the fact the 17 year old lied about their age is
           | not a quality catch - They have to have support networks and
           | enough opportunity to test the waters to figure that out
           | before they get caught in a predator's web. One of the most
           | important tools towards that is the ability to create
           | anonymous accounts and explore, with understanding but
           | without consequences.
           | 
           | [1] I won't iterate over the ways that is true, and I won't
           | iterate over the ways that your perfect age verification is
           | either a) broken or b) totalitarian and broken.
        
             | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
             | > There's no sure way to verify that a user is over 18
             | 
             | This is like a bar complaining that they shouldn't have to
             | check ids because counterfeits exist. You can't serve your
             | customers At Scale if you have to comply with those pesky
             | laws, so maybe don't do it at scale.
        
             | jfk13 wrote:
             | > Quite frankly: I want 17 year olds to use Tinder...
             | 
             | How about 16 yr olds? 15? 13? 10? 7? Should we draw a line
             | for "dipping their toe anonymously in adult activities"
             | somewhere, or should that line simply not exist?
             | 
             | Do you believe that every 13 yr old is in fact being
             | appropriately monitored by parents? If not, should there be
             | some safeguards to mitigate the fact that in practice this
             | is not reliable?
        
               | bostik wrote:
               | > _How about 16 yr olds? 15? 13? 10? 7? Should we draw a
               | line for "dipping their toe anonymously in adult
               | activities" somewhere [...]?_
               | 
               | Age of consent differs across countries. So yes,
               | different countries and jurisdictions _already_ draw a
               | line for various adult activities. They also disagree
               | what those lines should be and where they should be
               | drawn.
               | 
               | Reality is messy.
        
               | GauntletWizard wrote:
               | Quite frankly: that line should be parents to draw and
               | enforce, within reason. The liability should not be on
               | the dating sites to prevent it from happening, not should
               | they be forgiven for ignoring it when it does happen and
               | it's brought to their attention.
               | 
               | I'm in the unenviable situation of having had one of my
               | big projects shut down for precisely this reason: it's
               | too expensive to moderate sites that kids may use. The
               | reason for that is actually very simple, proved by data,
               | and verboten to say.
        
           | 908B64B197 wrote:
           | My car isn't supposed to be driven by someone without a
           | license. It's kept locked when not in use.
           | 
           | Yet, that might not stop a 17 years old without a license
           | from stealing my keys and taking it for a joy ride. Should we
           | then outlaw cars since evidently it doesn't function within
           | the law?
           | 
           | These kids are violating the ToS.
        
             | JeremyNT wrote:
             | While I love a good car analogy as much as the next person
             | this really doesn't fly.
             | 
             | First of all, the TOS click through flow is more like
             | leaving a car running, unlocked, and adding a piece of
             | masking tape that says "please don't drive me" on the door
             | handle. TOS operate entirely on the honor system.
             | 
             | Second, you have no incentive for random children to come
             | drive your car. For the tech giants, more users are great!
             | So their incentives here are all in favor of letting kids
             | sign up and doing the bare minimum to try and prevent this
             | required to appease regulators.
        
           | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
           | In tech, we've gone so far from manual work that we've all
           | forgotten what's possible. If you run a bar and let in a 14
           | year old, you're responsible for that. If you decide to
           | automate your work, you are not in any way absolved of that
           | responsibility just because it might be impossible to
           | automate with the same level of reliability as doing it by
           | hand.
           | 
           | In other words, doing the very best that's possible doesn't
           | count for shit if it's impossible to do what you have to do.
           | Because it's always possible to comply, just not always
           | possible to do it digitally. Tough shit. Then don't do it
           | digitally.
        
         | wswope wrote:
         | > I really wish we had less kneejerk cliche-recycling (eg
         | "don't be evil" comments).
         | 
         | Looking at your profile, it's very obvious that your writing
         | here is an ego-driven deflection to absolve yourself of
         | complicity in these unethical behaviors. You sound like an ex-
         | Shell employee denying global warming. But who cares as long as
         | you're not as bad as the Koch brothers?
        
         | literallyWTF wrote:
         | Without fail, there's always someone who literally bends over
         | backwards to defend these sorts of actions. I never understand
         | it, do you expect some sort of payment or something?
        
           | nevergoogle wrote:
           | > _I never understand it, do you expect some sort of payment
           | or something?_
           | 
           | Exactly that, if you look in their bio, they're ex-Google.
           | Certainly they still hold stock, so are trying to protect the
           | stock price. It's people like this that _built_ Google, so it
           | 's no wonder it's an extremely unethical company.
        
           | eeegnu wrote:
           | It's always worth examining the other perspective, it makes
           | for actual discussion. If I want to see everyone in agreeance
           | with no room for these opinions I'll use reddit.
        
           | wswope wrote:
           | He's literally been paid by Google and Facebook - see
           | profile.
        
         | specialist wrote:
         | > _First, kids use sites and apps when they 're below the ToS
         | age... How are you meant to know that as a service provider?_
         | 
         | You think major providers don't know who is a kid? Please.
         | 
         | They have profiles for every person living and dead. They have
         | 1000s of data points for every person.
         | 
         | They only pretend to not know. CYA.
         | 
         | A fiction that stops when they target ads towards those same
         | kids.
        
         | yblu wrote:
         | I think you made some good points. But you should probably have
         | disclosed you worked for Google and Facebook.
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | > I'm not sure fining a company billions of dollars and putting
         | executives in jail is the outcome anyone really wants if a 17
         | year old uses Tinder.
         | 
         | Jail, would be disproportionate, _but_ , those giants are
         | perfectly aware that kids under certain age have absolutely no
         | idea of the value of money and how much it costs to bring it
         | home, then spend it carefully so there will be some available
         | for less important stuff. So you show them ads of the latest
         | cellphone or pair of famous-rapper-sponsored shoes that cost
         | half of what their parents bring home in a month, and they'll
         | want that crap no matter the cost. This is no that different
         | from targeting very old people with phone calls, among which
         | some can be lured into buying unnecessary stuff, sign
         | fraudulent contracts, or worse, just because a well dressed
         | drone rang their door and spent the evening talking with them
         | to conquer their trust.
         | 
         | Quite frankly I'm disgusted by those manipulative people, and
         | tech giants dwelling in the dark side to maximize their profits
         | make no difference.
        
           | shadowgovt wrote:
           | It's also basically no different from the standard for
           | broadcast media advertising. The US has cycled back and forth
           | on whether it should be illegal from decade to decade, but
           | the jury is pretty out on that point of philosophy as a
           | whole.
        
           | derangedHorse wrote:
           | >So you show them ads of the latest cellphone or pair of
           | famous-rapper-sponsored shoes that cost half of what their
           | parents bring home in a month, and they'll want that crap no
           | matter the cost. This is no that different from targeting
           | very old people with phone calls, among which some can be
           | lured into buying unnecessary stuff, sign fraudulent
           | contracts, or worse, just because a well dressed drone rang
           | their door and spent the evening talking with them to conquer
           | their trust.
           | 
           | I don't see how companies not properly filtering out minors
           | from their platform equate to them being similar to
           | fraudsters who target the elderly. One is an example of
           | (potentially) willful ignorance of the age of users on their
           | platform, and the other is willful malice targeted at a
           | vulnerable group.
        
         | dmitriid wrote:
         | You've listed the reasons why governments try not to regulate
         | things until there's a blatant disregard of even common
         | decency.
         | 
         | We're way beyond blatant disregard.
        
         | specialist wrote:
         | > _And if we 're going to start singling out tech giants for
         | lobbying Congress, my question is why them in particular?_
         | 
         | Because they're the criminals. By their own admission.
         | 
         | The real question is why it took Congress so long.
        
         | rapind wrote:
         | > I'm not sure fining a company billions of dollars and putting
         | executives in jail is the outcome anyone really wants if a 17
         | year old uses Tinder.
         | 
         | Honestly, why not? If society deems that illegal, and the
         | enablers are responsible, then so be it.
         | 
         | If said company can't figure out how to profit while preventing
         | this then why do I care? Lot's of businesses aren't viable
         | without illegal practices.
         | 
         | I'm doubtful this will be the actual fallout, but it wouldn't
         | bother me at all if it was.
         | 
         | If your businesses success relies on scale, but that scale in
         | turn presents insurmountable issues, then congratulations, you
         | found an unsustainable business model. No big deal.
        
           | missedthecue wrote:
           | " _Honestly, why not? If society deems that illegal, and the
           | enablers are responsible, then so be it._ "
           | 
           | Why not? I can think of a couple different situations where a
           | given democratic society deemed X to be illegal, but that
           | does not make it right.
        
       | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
       | "We have been successful in slowing down and delaying the
       | [ePrivacy Regulation] process and have been working behind the
       | scenes hand in hand with the other companies," the complaint
       | quoted Google executives as saying in a memo ahead of the
       | meeting. The August meeting could "find areas of alignment and
       | narrow gaps in our positions and priorities on child privacy and
       | safety."
       | 
       | This sounds like a starting point for further investigation.
       | 
       | Perhaps the litigation will reveal more about what is going on
       | inside Big Tech.
        
         | matheusmoreira wrote:
         | Why were they successful? Why can't politicians just do the
         | opposite of what these lobbyists want them to do? Whatever it
         | is they're pushing is likely good for them and bad for society.
         | Just do the opposite.
         | 
         | They want less privacy protections for the humans they're
         | exploiting? Add more. Add so many protections they probably
         | won't be able to make any money anymore.
        
           | nigerian1981 wrote:
           | Because the lobbyists support their political campaigns.
        
             | bostik wrote:
             | Or they want a cushy, well-paid job in the industry they
             | are supposedly regulating.
             | 
             | See also: revolving door policy making.
        
         | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
         | NB. This is ongoing antitrust litigation, not privacy
         | litigation. Journalists and the public are not only interested
         | in illegal acts (the law has not kept up with the internet),
         | they are also interested in unethical and harmful behaviour
         | (which, who knows, might someday be made illegal). The judge
         | ordered documents filed in this antitrust case to be unsealed.
         | Thus, irrespective of the success of the states' antitrust
         | claims, the public benefits by learning about Big Tech's
         | conduct.
        
         | extropy wrote:
         | It seems that they did not do anything illegal, so not sure
         | what you are proposing to litigate?
         | 
         | Lobbying lawmakers is a basic practice that happens all the
         | time. And a law is not right on its own right, there is always
         | supporters and detractors. Just that we agree as a society yo
         | abide by the laws we currently have.
         | 
         | If anything we should invest in more public awareness to make
         | sure strong privacy requirements are signed into the law.
         | 
         | On the other hand, strong privacy laws is a sizable buerocratic
         | burden on the society. So we should be cautious to not over
         | regulate. Laws are difficult to change or revoke even if they
         | are found ineffective or too stringent later on.
         | 
         | A high trust environment where most of the players do the right
         | thing without the buerocracy and enforcement is way more
         | efficient.
        
       | washadjeffmad wrote:
       | Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28860824
       | 
       | Google hasn't been shy about their own cash for kids(' data)
       | schemes. It's also pretty wild how similar their market creation
       | tactics are (and how beneficial they would be) to groomers other
       | child exploiters.
       | 
       | What are advertising and privacy protection laws regarding
       | children like in other counties? Could Google have happened
       | somewhere with stronger consumer and child protection laws?
        
       | sva_ wrote:
       | This seems like a bad day for Google (and 'fellow tech giants'.)
       | I wonder if there will, for once, be any actual consequences that
       | will lead to change.
       | 
       | If not, then I don't know if these mega-corporations are perhaps
       | to be considered untouchable, which would cast serious doubt on
       | our government; or rather, erase most doubt remaining about the
       | degree of corruption thereof (at least from my perspective.)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | koolba wrote:
       | Title suffix of "... states allege" removed due to HN length
       | limits. Full title: _Google sought fellow tech giants ' help in
       | stalling kids' privacy protections, states allege_
        
         | evgen wrote:
         | A more honest title would remove 'states allege' and simply
         | state 'evidence shows'.
        
           | extropy wrote:
           | Or more biased, depends on which side you are.
        
       | imgabe wrote:
       | > A week before the meeting, the Federal Trade Commission
       | announced that it was considering making changes to its
       | interpretation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act,
       | which prohibits companies from collecting information about kids
       | under the age of 13 without parental permission.
       | 
       | How would that work in practice? A lot of us here operate
       | websites. Your website gets a request. How are you supposed to
       | tell the age of the person that request came from? Maybe Google /
       | Facebook have enough data to identify the person and their age,
       | but ironically, they would have to collect information about them
       | to determine that it's a person they shouldn't collect
       | information about.
       | 
       | Certainly no child in the history of the Internet has ever lied
       | to a website when asked their age.
        
         | resoluteteeth wrote:
         | I think that websites generally do this based on whether the
         | content is primarily intended for children (e.g. youtube
         | doesn't collect this type of data when users are viewing videos
         | marked as being for children).
        
           | xenomachina wrote:
           | And this ends up breaking the site for adults as well.
           | 
           | I have a YouTube playlist of videos I'd like to show my kids.
           | It turns out that YouTube will not allow videos marked as
           | "intended for children" to be added to a playlist, even by an
           | account that belongs to a adult. So the only videos I can put
           | in that playlist for my kids are ones YouTube thinks are NOT
           | for kids.
        
             | throwawayay02 wrote:
             | That just sounds like a bug.
        
               | makomk wrote:
               | It's not a bug, it's a direct and intentional consequence
               | of the FTC's efforts to strengthen COPPA which this
               | article complains that Google didn't just go along with,
               | and required by the settlement mentioned in the article.
               | COPPA effectively bans companies from collecting data on
               | under-13s (there's a parental consent provision which is
               | basically infeasable to comply with), which includes
               | stuff like letting them add videos to playlists. Google
               | didn't allow under-13s to have accounts, but parents let
               | kids watch videos on their accounts and the FTC's
               | position is that this was a violation of COPPA when the
               | videos weren't aimed at kids. So now Google cannot, by
               | law, allow people to comment on videos that seem like
               | they're aimed at kids, add them to playlists, or do other
               | things that collect data from the person viewing them.
        
         | thenthenthen wrote:
         | Login using social security number/id. Its commonplace in one
         | of the larger economies
        
         | f6v wrote:
         | > How would that work in practice?
         | 
         | You could ask everyone to confirm their age with eID.
        
           | eitland wrote:
           | Which ironically takes your site from
           | 
           | - "can maybe connect sensitive data to some persons"
           | 
           | to
           | 
           | - "can absolutely connect sensitive data to every user unless
           | they really go out of their way to avoid it"
        
         | seanhunter wrote:
         | Maybe you shouldn't collect the information about anybody
         | unless you have a way of discriminating.
         | 
         | I run some (low-traffic) websites. I don't collect any
         | information about anyone. It's not essential.
        
           | LinuxBender wrote:
           | This is basically what I do with my hobby sites. I have
           | HAProxy sprinkled around the internet here and there. I set
           | the custom header with the client IP address to something
           | that my web server doesn't recognize. This means everyone on
           | the internet shows up as my VPN address. This also forces me
           | to ignore IP addresses and design protection ACL's to be
           | generalized. It has been a fun learning exercise.
           | 
           | That said, I am not suggesting that businesses should or
           | could do this. Some businesses are required through
           | regulations to capture IP addresses of their customers at a
           | minimum.
        
           | imgabe wrote:
           | It depends on what they consider "collecting information".
           | Does your server log IP addresses? Do you know the age of the
           | person behind each IP address? Does that count as "collecting
           | information" about them? You know an IP, the time and date
           | they accessed the site, what pages they viewed, you can infer
           | a general location. If the law is not clear enough, it can be
           | interpreted to make basically any website infringing.
           | 
           | If you want to have a newsletter, or offer a service where
           | people log in and want to recover their password, you'll need
           | at least an email address. Can you verify that every email
           | address is exclusively used by people 13+?
        
             | mark_l_watson wrote:
             | I agree with the grandparent poster that not collecting
             | information should be the default.
             | 
             | re: collecting IP addresses: I run my web sites behind
             | Nginx and does have rolling logs, but I ignore IP
             | addresses.
             | 
             | For your e-mail use case, I think a reasonable compromise
             | is asking if the user is older than 13 and what alternative
             | is there but to trust them? Personally, I think that
             | collecting e-mail addresses for people signing up for a
             | newsletter is a great example of when it is perfectly fine
             | to collect private data.
        
             | svachalek wrote:
             | I think duration and consent have to be part of the
             | equation. Collecting an IP for somewhere in the range of
             | milliseconds to 24 hours in order to gather statistics
             | about site traffic is one thing, putting it in perpetual
             | storage for cross correlation is entire different. Asking
             | for an email address to create an account is one thing,
             | using 3rd party cookies to figure out someone's email
             | address to cross correlate with their browsing history is
             | different. Blurring the line between these innocent
             | practices and mass surveillance by international
             | corporations is quite disingenuous.
        
               | imgabe wrote:
               | I am not trying to blur the line or say they're
               | equivalent. I'm saying that if the law, as written,
               | doesn't distinguish between these things then it becomes
               | a cudgel that can be selectively wielded against any
               | website that happens to draw the ire of anyone with power
               | to launch investigations.
               | 
               | We all see how incompetent the government is when it
               | comes to understanding technology and how it works (see
               | the Missouri governor clamoring to prosecute someone for
               | "hacking" because they used view source), so remember
               | when you're asking for greater regulation who it is
               | that's going to be doing the regulating.
        
         | Factorium wrote:
         | Requiring payment for access would also work. Maybe $10 for a
         | lifetime membership, otherwise its read-only.
         | 
         | Children can only participate with these companies because the
         | product is 'free'. Same with p*rn and free2play games:
         | eliminate the 'free' component to effectively block them from
         | children (at least without parental consent).
        
           | derangedHorse wrote:
           | Not too hard to get around. I have friends who used to buy
           | American Express gift cards to get around having to pay
           | online with a credit card so kids could easily get around any
           | payment restrictions. I think all a paywall would do is make
           | life more inconvenient for the average user.
        
         | simion314 wrote:
         | >How would that work in practice? A lot of us here operate
         | websites. Your website gets a request. How are you supposed to
         | tell the age of the person that request came from?
         | 
         | Idea, browsers would implement parent control, so when you
         | setup a child account on your kid device the OS will store the
         | age of the user, the browsers would read this. Then in the
         | request (maybe depending or region or whatever protocol) the
         | browser can tell you if the user age is <13 or other interval.
         | 
         | So this means the browsers need to collaborate with the OS and
         | the parent has the responsibility to setup the correct user
         | account for the user in the OS, for older OS the parent will
         | have to setup this setting directly in browser and setup the
         | browser in a "child" mode.
        
       | gundmc wrote:
       | Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28967575
       | 
       | There are at least 4 similar stories on the front page right now
       | all stemming from the same amended Texas court filing.
        
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