FTC Fines Xanga for Violating Kids' Privacy

WebHostingGuy writes "As reported by MSNBC, the FTC has fined Xanga.com $1 million dollars for repeatedly allowing children under 13 to sign up for the service without getting their parent's consent. This is the largest penalty ever issued for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act." From the article: "'Protecting kids' privacy online is a top priority for America's parents, and for the FTC,' FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement. 'COPPA requires all commercial Web sites, including operators of social networking sites like Xanga, to give parents notice and obtain their consent before collecting personal information from kids they know are under 13. A million-dollar penalty should make that obligation crystal clear.'" What impact, if any, do you think this will have on other community sites that may not always follow the COPPA statutes?

Comments

what does this accomplish

[PrinceAshitaka]

The FTC is trying to prevent child predators access to young children, a noble endeavor. The problem is that there are few good ways to confirm a person age online. If they disallow users under 13 from creating accounts, the users will lie about there age. If they want age confirmation, then it costs much more, and less people will wan tto go throug the trouble. I have credit cards but I am not about to use one online for age verification purposes. What about all the legitmate users over 13 that do not have the ability to confirm ones age. I don't know how a 15 year old would go about this online. A 15 year old would not have a drivers license, a credit card, or any other indentification. This will do nothing to help thier goals of protecting children.

That being said, they seem to have broken the law, it doesn't matter that the law has no value.

Re:what does this accomplish

[exley]

You make a valid point -- performing age verification online is difficult, and when age verification is in place, some kids will just circumvent it. But that's not the issue. From the sounds of it, Xanga wasn't even trying to stop kids under 13 from signing up without permission. Xanga knew full well that the kids were under 13 (by the birthdays that they entered when signing up), and as yet, did nothing.

Re:what does this accomplish

[xiphoris]

It absolutely matters that the law has no value. It is any citizen's duty to attempt to reverse such unreasonable laws.

If, as you admit, there is no reasonable way for a website to enforce minimum-age restrictions, then the law is unjust and should not be upheld. Indeed, it will be a good thing for the company to take the FTC to court and get the law struck down, not only as unconstitutional, but hopefully as stupid also. That might send a message to legislators who cry out "But think of the children!" and pass dumb laws as part of their election campaigns.

Re:what does this accomplish

[antifoidulus]

Well, according to the article what Xanga got in trouble for is not validating the birthdate the users gave to see if it was over 13. They just had to check a box stating that they were over 13. However, suppose they did put an extra check in there that rejected the user if the birthdate indicated they were under 13. The ones with minimal ability in math(given the trackrecord in education, I'm not sure how big a percentage of the local population that really is :P) would just change their birhdate to be older than 13.

But of course, the bigger issue is why the FTC and Xanga have to be parents to these kids. It's not like there isn't a massive ad campaign targeting internet ads, radio, tv, and billboards as well as countless news "exposes" about online predators. Parents cannot claim they didn't think their child could be targeted by these things. Parents need to have talks with their kids explaining the risks and above all educate themselves about what goes on. Parents can then monitor their childs internet activity or install filters at either the local or ISP level(though I'm not sure those ISPs that filter are even around anymore).

But who am I kidding? That would be taking personal responsibility for something, which is becoming vastly unpopular in America(and elsewhere really) these days. Even the conservatives like to exculpate themselves from their own bad behavior by blaming faceless entities....Now that I have gotten way off topic, I'll shut up now.

Re:what does this accomplish

[ChronosWS]

Actually, it does matter. We should be outraged at ineffective or unrealistic laws such as this which only serve to penalize businesses because they go against the political whims of the day. Just because Congress wants a thing doesn't mean that thing is feasable or that we should be burdened with their unrealistic views of how things should be.

Re:what does this accomplish

[demeteloaf]

The thing is, the kids who did get in were lying anyways. Everyone who wanted to register had to check a box saying that A) They were over 13, and B) they read the terms of service. My guess is that the Xanga designers thought that that was a good enough age check, and they didn't bother writing in code that actually checked the date of birth entered, because the users were already affirming that they were over 13 by checking the box.

Basically the FTC is saying that Xanga needs to make sure the kids are smart enough to lie in 2 different places (both by checking the box saying that they are over 13 and entering a fake date of birth), and because they didn't do that they should have to pay a fine. The solution of forcing the under 13 year olds to lie about their birthdate really doesn't solve anything at all... I know that i personally just used a fake birthdate when I was registering for over 18 sites as a kid, and there's really not going to be anything stopping the under 13 crowd from lying about their age as well.

Re:what does this accomplish

[westlake]

A 15 year old would not have a drivers license, a credit card, or any other indentification.

Pre-teens have been using plastic for quite some time now. Girls Say Hello Kitty To Hello Debit Card (2004)

Re:what does this accomplish

[tonyr1988]

It shouldn't be that easy for children (under 13) to accomplish. The article is correct - it should ask for the birthday, not a box.

An average 13 year old kid will know that they have to check the box to get in. Asking for a birthday (especially if you put it between some other boxes) won't get a second thought from most kids. It's an easy, yet effective (not perfect, but pretty close) age validation.

As far as the "kids will go back and change their birthday" - that's avoidable, too. I remember many years ago I tried signing up for a Yahoo account (goodbye positive karma), but was underage (I think you had to be 16. Either way, I wasn't old enough). They used the birthday trick. However, when I went back to change the birthday, they told me that I was trying to trick them. They kept a log of recently applied-for accounts that were denied because of age, and if too many fields match, they wouldn't let you re-apply.

Why can't Xanga do something like that? We're talking about "tricking" 13 year old kids to tell the truth about their age. It shouldn't be that hard.

Re:what does this accomplish

[coleopterana]

It's always been recognized that children under the age of 13 can do the following: unknowingly disclose personal information that makes them vulnerable to people skilled in exploiting and manipulating individuals with limited experience in some areas (like avoiding being prey) and lying about their ages. It's not going to be possible under most circumstances to background check a user's personal information such as his or her age--it's not feasible, it's expensive, and most of the time it's just a waste of time. So why do we even have this act where we require people to declare that they are 13, 18, 21 and up and so on? Well, if it's just that, it doesn't do any good. A 12 year old won't necessarily understand why they are supposde to be at least 13 to have an account on some site or interact with certain people and material, and that's where I think sites should probably, to comply with the spirit of the protection laid out in the law, advise people when registering on their sites WHY they are asking for ages, not just that they are complying with some particular legistation. The child who's aware of the potential that his or her personal information or details inadvertantly disclosed through action or writing on a site or in chat or on a blog like Xanga is much more likely, in my humble opinion and experience with such people, is going to be more careful about their information. We protect children because they don't always have the experience or perspective to think of the things that they could be doing or saying that make them vulnerable to acts by predatory individuals. I don't think so far the legislation is achieving that sort of goal because it's not directed at the people who are doing the revealing, it's been directed at the site owners and parents. These people have some responsibility for sure, but if you ignore the kids out there, you're just asking for trouble. I'd be interested to hear from people who own or run sites like Xanga on what they think about their responsibilities, both in the letter and the spirit of the law, and how they think things in any respect might be changed to be more informative and protective of a potentially vulnerable class of Internat users.

Re:what does this accomplish

[Kesch]

Yes, but with a birthdate check instead of just allowing in dishonest preteens, they will only allow in dishonest preteens who can do simple math problems.

Re:what does this accomplish

[AusIV]

First, Xanga does have users enter a birthday when signing up, and if the birthdate shows a person is not 13, they cannot sign up.

The rest is not quite true either. If parents become aware of their kid's xanga, there is a process for having the site shut down. Xanga is huge. It would be incredibly difficult (if even possible) for Xanga to monitor all sites. However I believe they have a process for reporting underage users, and look into reports.

Re:what does this accomplish

[exley]

As far as kids lying, that is again a valid point. From TFA:

"COPPA requires all commercial Web sites, including operators of social networking sites like Xanga, to give parents notice and obtain their consent before collecting personal information from kids they know are under 13."

So it's not as simple as the FTC saying that kids should just be able to lie in two different places. Now, how exactly parental consent is supposed to be given is another issue. And of course, there are ways to lie about that as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to jump on the "But what about the children!" bandwagon. But at the same time, not every piece of legislation about protecting children is automatically going to be bullshit just because people here on Slashdot think so. Yeah, things like COPPA could very well be unworkable solutions to the problem. Just in this thread, as well as other comments on this article, plenty of flaws in executing laws such as this are being highlighted. The issue can't just be ignored, though.

Oh, and finally, Xanga should have known full well what their obligations were by law (whether or not the law is crap), and they could have easily covered their asses. So I have no sympathy for them in this matter.

Re:what does this accomplish

[uw_badgers]

First, Xanga does have users enter a birthday when signing up, and if the birthdate shows a person is not 13, they cannot sign up.

Now they do, but apparently there was a period of time where they didn't check the birthdate, and 1.7 million children under 13 signed up. From the MSNBC article:

"Children merely had to check a box confirming they were over 13, according to FTC lawyer Mary Engle -- even if they'd previously entered a birth date indicating they were under 13."

Re:what does this accomplish

[kosmosik]

> If, as you admit, there is no reasonable way for a website to
> enforce minimum-age restrictions,

I live in Poland/Europe. For starters. :)

Here when you are born you get a PESEL number which is date of birth +some ID. The same number is printed on your ID documents whenever you are an adult on a minor.

My point is that only you and the state knows that fe. 198402234214 == Jane Kowalski - so all websites need to do in order to verify age is require that PESEL number and then pass it to another organization that is trusted to send snail mail to the person owning the PESEL number. The company only knows the number (not the data associated to it) the special organization knows the address. Then the organization sends (via snail mail) token to verify in WWW service to the owner of the number (theoretically only the owner is entitled to read his own snail mail).

Of course it would be more expensive than just online registration (by few factors). But it depends on scale - if sending snail mail letter costs you $0.1 and on average you earn $10 on an user and 1/5 registered confirms tokens it is still viable.

That is how our biggest auction site operates (something like eBay) - but they need to verify the real adress and person, not the age. And it somehow works. :)

So I think that there may be reasonable ways.

Re:what does this accomplish

[WeblionX]

So, logically, pornography websites that checks the user's age should be commended on their help of teaching kids basic subtraction? Obviously this means we can cut the education budget since these websites will pick up the slack. Brilliant!

Re:what does this accomplish

[fm6]

Basically the FTC is saying that Xanga needs to make sure the kids are smart enough to lie in 2 different places (both by checking the box saying that they are over 13 and entering a fake date of birth), and because they didn't do that they should have to pay a fine.

In other words, Xanga was negligent because they failed to implement a safeguard that is known to be useless. The main purpose of this fine seems to be to allow the FTC to claim that they're doing everything they can to protect children. And, technically speaking, they are!

Re:what does this accomplish

[DragonWriter]

But of course, the bigger issue is why the FTC and Xanga have to be parents to these kids.

Because:

1. people who can't be bothered to raise their own children want government to do it for them, and
2. busybodies who want to tell other people how to raise their children want to use government as the the tool to compel compliance.

Re:what does this accomplish

[ubergamer1337]

Your sexist education plan will only educate the men, however...

Re:what does this accomplish

[Cramer]

You obviously haven't thought about this for very long... If I give my PESEL to a web site to verify who I am, then THEY would also know my number. For example, my name is "foo" and my number is "42". I know my number and the state, who assigned that number in the first place, knows that number. If I give my name as "foo" to Xanga and they ask for my PESEL, then they will also know my number once I've been confirmed. Xanga won't immediately know "foo" is "42" until some state agency, ultimately, confirms it. But, the instant my identity is confirmed, Xanga will also know my PESEL. At such time, the PESEL becomes useless for identification because someone else (lots of someone else's actually) can now pass the same identity check as if they were me. (It's called 'identity theft'.)

Re:what does this accomplish

[arose]

What he described doesn't require PESEL to be secret, in fact I doubt the Polish would be stupid enough to use a number you give left and right (if it's anything like the Latvian version) as the sole mechanism for identification, that's what the snail mail he mentioned is for--the PESEL in this case only serves as a "hash" for a snail mail address.

Re:what does this accomplish

[thej1nx]

So Xanga is a website that imediately steals your identity? Why you wanted to use it in the first place?

because your logically flawed question missed one thing.

He doesn't minds using it, if they don't have access to his identity in the first place. Same reason you would use hundreds of sites like say slashdot, without caring whether or not they are capable of stealing your SSN.

Because they don't have access to your SSN in the first place.

Children have no rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, they have no rights online. Therefore, this should not be filed under YRO.

End of message.

Re:Children have no rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Children have no rights

That's right. That's why my father always asked me to do these stupid things; "Hey you don't have rights! ONLY OBLIGATIONS AND DUTIES!" when he used to whip me while I was working to bring in the money as a 10yo. "When you grow up you can have your own kids who have no rights", he used to say. Oh the fond times we had.

The older you get, the more rights you get and the less obligations, because you're more human when you're older. When you're a child, you're just an oversized spermazoid that's nagging at your parents head constantly for toys and food and love and stuff... Which you only deserve when you're a REAL human person.

You could use children to heat you at night, by burning them in the stove, they don't have rights, they can't go to court! Ha! and you can make plenty more of them... LEGALLY! and free...

Re:Children have no rights

[mdwh2]

Well children obviously do have rights - but more to the point, what about the rights of someone hosting a website?

The impact it'll have:

[smellsofbikes]

Sites will move their hosting out of the US, and their executives won't visit the US.

More realistically, social networking sites will add more verification layers (that don't work) for greater plausible deniability, and those that think they can, will start requiring credit card info.

Proof?

[HockeyPuck]

How do you prove that a kid got his parent's permission?

Have your parent click here [__] to proceed.

Re:Proof?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

My sister once joined a site that required a mailing or faxing of a permission form. I don't know how they would verify that, as much as how they would verify that someone is over 13.

Re:Proof?

[bunions]

if it's on Rainbow Brite or My Pretty Pony stationary, or if it's written in crayon, you are denied. Otherwise, you're in.

Re:Am I over 13 yes yes yes

[bunions]

None, that's not the issue. Apparently Xanga has been doing exactly what any rational person would do in the face of a pointless law: ignoring it completely.

n its complaint, the FTC alleged that Xanga, a rival to the popular MySpace.com, allegedly permitted creation of 1.7 million accounts by users who submitted birthdays indicating they were under 13.

It's a shame that someone will actually have to pay a fine for this bullshit, but really, they shoulda known.

Childs right to privacy?

[nurb432]

I thought they had none, according to the last case i heard of the government/school searching students at will. " children do not have the same rights as adults "...

Lets make up our minds, ok?

I don't really see the problem here

[pcgamez]

From the article, the following happened:

People were first presented with a question asking if they were over 13. If the users clicked yes, they proceeded to the registration page. The registration page included fields for birthdays. People who had lied on the first part could then enter their age. The form did not automatically reject users whose birthdates were not at least 13 years prior. In this case it looks like (IANAL) Xanda DID comply with the law. The FTC seems to be punishing them for making it "too easy" to get around it. This is where I have a problem. Where does it end? The FTC could just as easily say requiring a CC (to verify age) is too easy because they could borrow someone else's. There doesn't seem to be a hard line for where reasonable precautions start and end.

"According to the Federal Trade Commission, children who wanted to open a Xanga account didn't even have to show that level of ingenuity. Children merely had to check a box confirming they were over 13, according to FTC lawyer Mary Engle -- even if they'd previously entered a birth date indicating they were under 13. "

Sure, not kids can just as easily lie like they do on myspace and put a different birth year.

Misguided, overzealous propaganda

[adf2006]

What more could they have done? They asked for age verification upon sign-up. No parent is going to give their thirteen year old child a credit card for the use of age verification on a site like that.

The policy makes sense, parents should know what their pre-teen children are doing. The problem is that this is the parents responsibility, not the website providing the service. It's one thing for a movie theater or porn-shop to let minors in, it's on their premises. These kids are (mostly) accessing the internet from their own home, where the parents should be able to monitor their activities.

There's only so much that can be done and putting a million dollar fine on Xanga is a completely ridiculous way to try and make the government look like it's actually doing something to help the problem. They're laying a huge portion of the blame in the wrong camp.

There is a problem, this is clearly an overzealous attempt at creating an appearance of action to hide the fact that there is simply nothing effective that they can really do. Xanga is the unfortunate victim.

What effect will the websites have on the law?

[xiphoris]

What effect will the websites have on the law? That's the question I would ask.

Laws like this are clearly unenforceable. More importantly, it is not morally the website's job to police the people who visit it. It's the job of the parents. Legislators don't seem to win their positions based on campaigns of parental responsibility, however. The trend seems to be "blame everyone else for your kid's problems".

Look at the crap going on involving Grand Theft Auto: someone makes a game modification to show a tit, a tit that isn't even available without modifying the game, and tons of legislators go apeshit about how it's inappropriate for children. Clearly these people aren't worried about justice, and instead are worried about winning the votes of emotional parents, the Security Moms.

A reasonable argument can be made that, for example, liquor stores have a duty to prevent children from buying alcohol in them. However, you must also consider that it is extremely easy and reliable to verify the age of store patrons. No analogy exists online -- it is impossible.

Expecting websites to perform such policing is unquestionably unfair, and I suspect that the courts will agree. The law might have effect on some websites in the short term. In the long term, the websites will have the law overturned as unreasonable.

We just have to hope that the justices who hear these cases really have an interest in justice, unlike the legislators who passed these braindead laws in the first place.

America needs to raise its own damn children (and I say this as an American)

Re:What effect will the websites have on the law?

[bunions]

> America needs to raise its own damn children (and I say this as an American)

Yes and no. The US is really schitzophrenic about this. On one hand it's hyperprotective about ludicrous bullshit (cf: GTA) and on the other hand it won't even provide decent free lunches to poor kids. It's sort of baffling.

Re:What About the parents?

[Jason1729]

Because the US is all about avoiding blame and responsibility. It's why there's so many punitive lawsuits and lawyers in the country.

Kids' Privacy is a top priority

[ajenteks]

From TA: "Protecting kids' privacy online is a top priority for America's parents, and for the FTC," FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement. Apparently it's not enough of a priority to the parents with underage children signing up on Xanga, or these parents would be stepping in themselves.

What about the parents?

[Skynyrd]

Why are parents allowing their 12 year olds to surf the net without supervision?
It isn't the government's problem to solve - it belongs to the parents.

Of course, it's the US, so it'll never fall in the lap of the sperm & egg donor.

COPPA does not exist to be a pain

[joily]

COPPA does not exist to be a pain, it exists as a way to help make sites that target tweens and children (intentionally or not) responsible for the content they are making public. It exists to protect children from having their personally identifiable info available in a public forum.

No one makes people enter into the business of social networking. Like any other business there are ethics and laws by which that business must abide. If a site is blatantly ignoring basic safeguards COPPA requires, they are breaking the law and should suffer the sanctions outlined under those laws.

Yes, parents should be the primary dispensers of the morals needed for their kids to navigate the sometimes age-inappropriate corners of the Internet. But if a site has an open journaling tool or has fields requesting information that would make a child easy to find and possibly hurt, that site DOES has an obligation (ethically and legally) to put the necessary hurdles in place to protect those children.

There are many levels of personal identification described in COPPA, all with different levels of verification needed. For example, if a child is signing up for a newsletter, no parental consent is needed. If their comments are not screened and made public, parental consent is needed.

There are many ways to verify parental consent. Credit card is one, 1-800 # is another, signed fax form is another. Once the parent agrees, anything the kid puts up is fair game. For more limited access, there is a new amendment to the act describing an email plus verification. The safeguards are actually not that hard, and many of those who target children specifically in their communities place much higher barriers to entry just to be sure.

Fines for COPPA violations are based on a per occurrence measurement.

And I am sure any of you who would like to donate your time or money to the exploration of more efficient and easier ways of verifiable parental consent would be greeted with open arms by the folks at the FTC.

Joi Podgorny
Director of Online Community
Star Farm Productions

Re:COPPA does not exist to be a pain

[Anonymous Coward]

COPPA does not exist to be a pain, it exists as a way to help make sites that target tweens and children (intentionally or not) responsible for the content they are making public. It exists to protect children from having their personally identifiable info available in a public forum.

In short "think of the children" political rhetoric. Where is the parent in all this questionable legislation? What makes you think COPPA is valid globally? COPPA DOES exist to be a pain as well as political poll "feel good" points. Add to that the revenue in fines like this and it is business as usual in Washington, DC.

No one makes people enter into the business of social networking. Like any other business there are ethics and laws by which that business must abide. If a site is blatantly ignoring basic safeguards COPPA requires, they are breaking the law and should suffer the sanctions outlined under those laws.

An unjust and unenforceable law can and should be overturned. If not by Congress then by the courts. Most ineffective laws that are passed like this one get shot down sooner or later.

Yes, parents should be the primary dispensers of the morals needed for their kids to navigate the sometimes age-inappropriate corners of the Internet.

You should have stopped right there but no, you go on with...

But if a site has an open journaling tool or has fields requesting information that would make a child easy to find and possibly hurt, that site DOES has an obligation (ethically and legally) to put the necessary hurdles in place to protect those children.

Horseshit! More of the "think of the children" rhetoric when the responsibility should lie solely and squarely in the hands of parents. If your child isn't savvy enough to figure out what information is "safe" to give, then they shouldn't have access to the internet unsupervised. That is the proper role of a parent. There is never a good reason to assign the role of parenting to the government.

There are many levels of personal identification described in COPPA, all with different levels of verification needed. For example, if a child is signing up for a newsletter, no parental consent is needed. If their comments are not screened and made public, parental consent is needed.

Which makes COPPA even more unenforceable and harder to implement. Now, instead of one level of verification, a site owner has many to contend with. For every level of complexity in any law, there are at least 1000 gray areas that fall between those levels. It is a result of knee-jerk politically motivated legislation like COPPA that makes companies move offshore to avoid this silliness. Does that mean that they are any less accessable to those under 13? Again, COPPA is simply a "feel good and get reelected" piece of legislation that has no meaning outside of the US.

There are many ways to verify parental consent. Credit card is one, 1-800 # is another, signed fax form is another. Once the parent agrees, anything the kid puts up is fair game. For more limited access, there is a new amendment to the act describing an email plus verification. The safeguards are actually not that hard, and many of those who target children specifically in their communities place much higher barriers to entry just to be sure.

Again, what affect does this have globally? Just how are you going to enforce this globally? It is a US law valid only in the US. It is also easy to circumvent no matter how you dance around the issue. In short, it is an ineffective law enforced arbitrarily and capriciously based on morals inflicted by the government to do the job of parents.

Fines for COPPA violations are based on a per occurrence measurement.

Of course they are. Gotta finance the FTC somehow not to mention the vari

Re:COPPA does not exist to be a pain

[Cramer]

There are many ways to verify parental consent. Credit card is one, 1-800 # is another, signed fax form is another.

Credit Card... simple swipe it from mom/dad and you're in. If the site doesn't charge the card, the "parents" will never know the number was given to anyone else. Depending on how and what you check, it could even be a number they found through google!

800#... call it yourself and lie. Or have a friend call it, and LIE. Do you have their voice on file? Are you going to record the call for future reference (in court)?

Signed form... And you have what exactly to compare that signature against?

And exactly how are you verifying that those presenting themselves as the parents are, in fact, the child's legal parent or guardian?

Ignorance is Bliss

[solinari]

A quick summary of this situation:

A) They had a "Are you over 13" check box
B) They had a entered birthdate

They only checked A, but not B, to determine if a user could register. If they hadn't asked for B, then A would have been sufficient as a "legal" check under this law. Also, if they had checked B, the users would have very likely gone back and lied about it, but they still would have been legal.

The fact that these checks are easily bypassed is not the issue at hand. Instead it is much like the issue with saved search data or saved email. Any piece of data, especially "people" data, that you save can potentially bring liability for you down the road. Both Xanga and Google in Brazil are examples of this principle.

In the past we've seen the manta "Storage is Cheap." Any time there's data, why not just hang onto it? You might be able to use it for something, someday. That has already proven to be a bad idea in many circumstanes (and it sure to get worse as more and more politicians start to realize how powerful all that aggregate data can be). A better rule is any time there is data that anyone might want for purposes other than immediate application, get rid of it as soon as reasonably possible!

Courts do not expect you to check data that you didn't collect because you didn't need it. Brazil cannot order you to turn over data that you don't have. You can still get in trouble, but they will need to establish that you're committing some kind of crime by keeping less personal data on people. That's a much harder standard to argue!

In short, ignorance is bliss, a principle for the digital millenium.

GameFAQs

[MostAwesomeDude]

GameFAQs has a very interesting policy which perhaps might save sites like Xanga and MySpace from getting reamed with fines. Anytime somebody on GameFAQs makes a post which implies or states that the user is underage, their account is immediately suspended pending verification of age. If the person really is underage, then their account is suspended until they are old enough.

Re:What about the parents?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Okay this is getting on my nerves.. It really is because Slashdot makes no bloody sense!

We act like we weren't children and we'll be the ultimate parents. We'll know where our kids are 24/7 and have RFID tags in their penis to stop them getting anyone pregnant or whatever magic pixie dust solution it is.

50 years ago kids did stuff they shouldn't, 1000 years ago they did, even today they do. That's because it's what kids do. If they can't get on Xanga/MySpace/whatever at home they will find a way to do it. Beg, borrow or steal you'll not stop a kid who desires something you try to keep out of his hands.

We bitch about over-protective soccer mums and then act like every bad kid is bad because the parents didn't do "the right thing". SHUT UP ABOUT IT! Some kids are just bad, some kids are just nerds, some kids want to screw their mother. That is how life is, everyone is different and while on mass people are generally okay that does not mean there are no bad apples and "parenting" can fix the ones that are.

Some times it's not possible to babysit your kids every second of the day. You have other things to do and hope for the best, most of the time it works out and you get away with it but once in a while it doesn't. This is not bad parenting, this is being a HUMAN BEING. Maybe we should hand-cuff parents and kids together, after all it's not like mothers and fathers need to pee any more, so it's fine if their kids follow them every where right?

I know this is rather trollish but damn it, you guys need to get off your high horses and accept that parents are meer mortals just like us! They can't be in 6 places at once and some times the greater evil comes before going Big brother on their 12 year old reading e-mails from their friends about how awesomely cool Ninja turtles was this week.

the impossibility of verifying age

[JimBobJoe]

I don't know how a 15 year old would go about this online.

A Time magazine article from a month or two ago indicated that the state attorney general's were having panicked meetings regarding this issue (including the famous quote from the Connecticut AG along the lines of "if we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age online.")

For a time they actually considered requiring sites like Myspace to collect SSNs...and according to the article, they rejected the idea once they realized that most of the world does not have an SSN, but does use the internets.

If that doesn't give you an idea of the caliber of people we're dealing with, I dunno what would. Requiring teens to submit their SSNs to use these types of sites would be a disaster along biblical proportions--imagine how easy phishing would be--all you'd need to do is send out an email that claims it's from Xanga needing your SSN.

This puts the burden on the wrong people

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Don't ask the kids their ages. Ask everyone if they're a pedophile. Anyone who says yes is barred from signing up. It works for keeping terrorists out of the country.

Re:What about the parents?

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Um....I don't know about you, but it sounds like you have never been a parent. It's incredibly EASY to figure out where kids are. Hell I am 35 and my mom still knows what I do. I know what my son does and where he goes. While I will agree that it's impossible to know exactly where they are every second of the day, it's pretty easy to control WHAT they do in your house:

1. NO computer in their room until they are 18. Sorry.....doesn't happen. Not saying they can have thier own, it just WILL NOT be in their room.

2. No computer use period if one of us isn't either home or awake. Break the rules and I will know (I will use Linux and check the access logs....).

3. Any violation of said rules will result in their computer turning into a server for dad's use.

Now I am a geek....things will be different in my house because I know how to do these things. If I didn't, I would only take away the log thing (as I would not know how to do it...thank god I am a geek).

This sounds draconian, but even I did not know enough to stay away from things like this until I was about 20 believe it or not. I remember when I was 20, I met a girl online and went to go meet her at her house. Found out she was 15. She told me she was 19. I counselled her a little and then left a little wiser. If I didn't quiz her on her real age, I could have went to jail and been labelled a sexual predator. From then on, I knew better. The bad thing that may have happened if the roles were reversed and I wasn't a nice guy. Kids simply do not have the where with all to understand how unsafe talking to people online can be especially if they go from the virtual world to meat space.

Oh I accept that at certain times, they will be out of my control. However, it's really easy to just meet the parents of thier best friends. Even simply a phone call would be more then enough for me to get what is going to happen at the friends house. It's surpising to me how many people take the stance that you can't know everything about your child. It must be beneath parents to talk to their kids! By just talking to my son, I knew his friends were Garrick and Nicholas and by the end of the school year, I knew thier parents pretty well and all I did was talk to them. I'd have let him go to either of his best friends house.

It's ok to have friends outside of your kids lives, but it's best to try to make friends with the parents of any of your kids best friends.

Just little things like this makes it pretty easy to know what your kid is doing and when. Its called parental responsibility.

Xanga: The NEW Mom and Dad

[AriaStar]

Parents, all you have to do to to get out of parenting and monitoring the child YOU created is to tell Xanga/MySpace/etc. that they have to do it for you! What fun! No longer do you have to actually watch your own children! And it's only a matter of time before they'll even have to change your infant child's diapers and potty train for you!! Because you, as a parent, should have to take NO responsibility for parenting!!!

Damned parents. Learn to watch your children closer and to take responsibility for raising them. If you aren't raising your children to be ethical people, ones truthful about their ages who won't go where they know they shouldn't, that's your problem. I know it's hard work, but it can be done. If you aren't ready to take the responsibility, don't have kids. And if you already chose to, don't bitch about it. You made your choice.