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Credit Card Required To View 'M' Rated Information

Posted by Zonk on from the a-little-extreme dept.

John Callaham writes "Gamecloud has a special feature article titled 'Going Through The Age Gate'. Why are some downloads of game trailers and demos are now requiring that a person declare their age before accessing them?" Not only are some sites requiring you declare your age, Activision is requiring a credit card to view "M" rated game information. From the article: "Asking for a credit card number, even if that the message says it will not be charged, brings up some very serious questions. Why is Activision asking for credit card numbers to access product pages that promote 'M' rated games when the ESRB and every other publisher only use the required 'age gate'?"

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Another 30,000 CC #'s stolen by PetyrRahl · · Score: 5, Funny

    That will be the next headline. They'll get hacked, the CC #'s will be stolen and ID theft will abound. Later it will come out that it was an ambitious VP who was in on it, made out like a bandit and is still at large.

    Petyr

  2. Just a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This thing isn't asking for name, billing address, CVC/CV2 number, experation date...

    It's asking for a number and a DOB.

    What this thing is doing is running the number against a check of Visa/Mastercard/AMEX's available card numbers to see if the algorithms check out. For example... 1111 1111 1111 1111 is not a valid card number. In fact, there are credit card number generators out on the net that do nothing but figure out bank information numbers and card holder numbers, throw it together, and give you a 16 digit account number.

    Any credit card generator program could easily be used to bypass this if people are being uptight about the authorization.

    The whole reason behind this is so that the parents realize that little Billy is digging in the wallet trying to figure out what a real credit card number looks like.

    Is it so bad that, instead of really looking at the information, we dig out the pitchforks over any little thing?

  3. Firefox Bypasses It by __aasfhc1949 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Firefox seems to bypass the Activision window blocking access to the "mature" site. All you have to do is open the link in a new tab (middle-click or ctrl-click on the link).