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Will California Eliminate Anonymous Web Browsing? (Comments on CA AB 2273)

191 points by dane-pgp 4y ago

coding123 4y ago
The fun thing about California laws is that the people that pass them really don't fucking care about dissent to their goals. left or right
LinuxBender 4y ago
Has anyone figured out if this will literally impact the entire internet, or will it only impact people in the US or just people hosting servers in California? If hosting in California is it enough to not utilize a hosting providers presence in California, or must everyone migrate to providers that do not have a presence in California?
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Does the GDPR only impact people hosting in Europe?
  - tgv 4y ago
    For some websites, yes, but on one hand the EU is a lot bigger, while on the other hand California is home to Google and facebook.
- judge2020 4y ago
  > Existing law, the Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act, requires a person or business that conducts business in California and that seeks to sell specified products or services to take reasonable steps to ensure that the purchaser is of legal age at the time of purchase or delivery, including verifying the age of the purchaser. My understanding is that the bill applies to the same businesses that the mentioned law does. Considering California has 40M people, that's not a cohort businesses can shut off from the internet.
  - phoe-krk 4y ago
    > Considering California has 40M people, that's not a cohort businesses can shut off from the internet. As someone who lives in a 447-million European Union and who keeps on getting HTTP 451 responses from various US-based services and websites after GDPR has gone into effect, I can't help but chuckle at your comment.
    - tschwimmer 4y ago
      The most common users of "We're sorry but we can't be bothered to figure out how to comply with GDPR" notices I've seen are for smaller US-based media organizations. The newspapers like the Ft. Worth Star Telegram or the St. Louis Post Dispatch (random examples, not sure if they actually block EU traffic) have (probably correctly IMO) concluded that the cost to comply with GDPR is likely to be more the than the revenue that could be gained by allowing the occasional EU reader and so have concluded that the most rational choice of action is to block access from the EU. This is a very different proposition than saying that Tik Tok, Youtube and Facebook would block CA-based users. In addition to the obvious fact that they all have hundreds or thousands of employees in CA, they would be forgoing one of their most important markets in terms of advertising. Furthermore, a lot of the top creators on these platforms live in greater LA. It's a non-starter. If you're doing anything social for anything that's not an domestic only market (e.g. VKontakte, WeChat) then you need California.
      - dotancohen 4y ago
        > have concluded that the cost to comply with GDPR is likely to be more > the than the revenue that could be gained by allowing the occasional EU reader Why would anybody read the news from a source whose prime motivation is anything other than dissemination of information? Not to excuse the profit motivation, but simply not setting any cookies is as simple a "fix" as is blocking access, unless one were to argue for the marginal cost of serving the occasional additional webpage.
        tschwimmer 4y ago
- pwg 4y ago
  Based on many of the "unknown reach" statements the author identified, it is impossible to say. One potential outcome, at least for US businesses where their legal teams believe they have some nexus to California, will be either: 1) apply these rules to any incoming California IP address; or 2) apply these rules to everyone, no matter where they are located. Naturally, the easier route above is to just do #2, which means these changes could, much like the EU's GDPR resulted in paranoid legal teams adding "cookie banners" everywhere, impact all sites that have any US presence at all.
  - nilespotter 4y ago
    > much like the EU's GDPR resulted in paranoid legal teams adding "cookie banners" everywhere Shoutout to this [1] firefox plugin that I rely on daily [1] https://github.com/jannisch/cookie-popup-blocker https://github.com/jannisch/cookie-popup-blocker
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    (1) is tricky. Laws like this do not apply to IP addresses AFAICT, they apply to people. Someone CA law applies to can access your server using a non-CA IP address and someone not restricted by this law can access your server using a CA address. I'd be surprised if you'd be "off the hook" for a child covered under this law accessing your service via a VPN. And, as a user, I'd be upset if I couldn't access your site using mullvad. I wonder if banning CA users in your ToS is sufficient for passing the burden of this law down to CA residents?
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      We may need an `X-Applicable-Laws` HTTP header.
- ransom1538 4y ago
  Eh. If this passed, most internet based firms will just bail on California. That legalese will invite thousands of law suites.
- stickfigure 4y ago
  Authors will just move content out of jurisdiction and stop caring. It's really hard to imagine that (say) France will extradite someone to California because their website didn't check your ID. See also: GDPR compliance by US websites.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Well GDPR did succeed in making most US websites badger me about cookies.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  AFAIK in all of California there are only two real upstream providers for "residential Internet" and every - single - subscriber must pass through their gates. Think of the airport or a modern busy toll bridge in California.. you will be tagged, watched and recorded.. some people really believe this is the way society ought to be run. To respond to the question: yes, it will.. it will polarize and strengthen the darknet, first. Your ordinary Calif. consumer will have to buy more things, second. Fines and lengthy, pointless court action, third.
swader999 4y ago
Society needs anonymous dissent. This is basic.
- tgv 4y ago
  Needs? As in: twitter and facebook fucked up social structures and we need it?
  - swader999 4y ago
    As in this forum for example.
    - r00fus 4y ago
      HN is not anonymous. It's pseudonymous at best.
      - pessimizer 4y ago
        The two don't oppose each other. Throwaway accounts are plentiful for those who want to use them, people who want to stick with a name can do that, and those who want to use (or otherwise make clear) their real name can do that.
      - raxxorraxor 4y ago
        HN doesn't even request a mail. For all intends and purposes it is synonymous with anonymity. Sure, there are platforms that don't even use a user handle. Given, you are free to reveal anything about you.
    - tgv 4y ago
      Now show me how that scales to 8B people ranting away. HN is only decent because of its strict moderation. Twitter and facebook, two examples I didn't name accidentally, don't do that, have a much larger audience, and did sow division, largely because they are anonymous.
- arcticbull 4y ago
tharne 4y ago
If you're betting on California doing something stupid, you always want to go long.
- deleted 4y ago
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paxys 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... The author is right that: 1. Every single website and app regardless of whether it is specifically built for kids or not is covered by this bill, and 2. It is virtually impossible to identify and segment your user base and apply the bill's protections to only those you can 100% confirm are under 18. So, the likely outcome is that this bill becomes an enhanced CCPA and something businesses have to generally comply with for every user. Looking at the actual contents of the bill though, my response to that is – great! I do want to be treated like a child online. I want sites to present terms of service in a language I can understand. I want them to set my account's privacy settings to the highest offered by default. I want apps to remove dark patterns that get me to spend money. I don't want them to store my data unless using it to provide a service. I want them to tell me up front if my browsing is being monitored by someone else. I want actual consequences if a company decides to leak all my personal data. (All of these are provisions that will be enforced). The author is critical of the bill as a whole but I don't see any argument against any of the individual provisions. I also don't get where the "eliminate anonymous web browsing" in the title comes from. If anything it will make it less likely for sites to track you.
- Alupis 4y ago
  The collection of identifying information for every user on your website is antithetical to the goals of CCPA and anyone that values any resemblance of privacy. Further, business do not want to be in charge of validating PII information, nor do they want to place roadblocks to casual users. The darn cookies and GDPR popups are already annoying enough. Are we trying to make the web unusable? This is just insanity, and will lead to a bunch of ecommerce businesses and website companies leaving CA. ie, no one will comply unless they have absolutely zero other choices.
  - zepppotemkin 4y ago
    Where is the need to do that specified in the actual bill? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2273 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... the majority of the bill is restrictions on collecting personal information in general I'm not sure most ecommerce sites would meet the criteria as something marketed and targeted at children I agree that 'likely visited by children' is nebulous but this seems to be heavily aimed at live streaming/recording services(twitch, tiktok .. etc), large public social forums (discord) and things like youtube kids
midhhhthrow 4y ago
I wish people would stop asking the government to raise their children. I am a parent. If you are a parent, start acting like one and watch your kids a lot more closely. Or better yet, actually spend time with them and stop using iPads as a baby sitter. I know this is harsh and may get downvoted but pared really need to start taking more responsibility on these matters
- ok_dad 4y ago
  The problem is, that in today's world, more and more time has been taken away from people because they have to work much more in order to survive the same way. Putting a kid on an iPad or the TV for an hour while you have a meeting is almost necessary. Not as many people live in a close-knit neighborhood, either, so help is non-existent for many. I know my wife and I struggle to find time to spend with our son since we both have to work. The only good thing for us is we both work from home, so we don't have an additional requirement to commute for several more hours or have to find a sitter or daycare too often. We still sometimes have to hire help to watch him when we both have busy days/weeks. You folks (not specific to the OP here) have to stop assuming everyone has the same amount of free time as you do, or perhaps some of you folks don't have kids and don't realize just how much time and effort they are!
  - midhhhthrow 4y ago
    Yeah but why do kids need to be online at all? For millions of years kids never had computers and they grew up just fine. In fact they grew up with fewer cases of depression etc. I’ve got a kid and I don’t let them online unless I’m there interacting with them, doing stuff together. Maybe I’ll let them watch for 15min for a job well done but not for hours on end
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Kids need to be doing what other kids the same age are doing. What that is has obviously changed throughout history with technology etc. Which doesn't mean I think it's perfectly fine to let them spend hours online or doing anything sedentary (even reading books) for extended periods every day, but stopping your kids from taking part in activities all their friends/classmates do isn't likely to be good for them either.
EGreg 4y ago
Didn’t Britain recently pass a similar law? What was the name?
- seti0Cha 4y ago
  It's mentioned in the article, along with why that should not be a model for California.
- jacooper 4y ago
  AFAIK it didn't pass, it was still in the planning phase, and then because of the governmental mess they have, it still yet to pass.
amanaplanacanal 4y ago
This seems universally good. If you can’t determine that your user is an adult, don’t collect or store personal information on them beyond what is necessary to provide the service.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  As universally good as GDPR maybe, where the actual results will be largely worse for everyone.
  - trasz 4y ago
    If you mean the cookie banners, it's the result of GDPR not being enforced strictly enough, so companies can use the banner to pretend they're not breaking the law.
    - bogomipz 4y ago
      This has been driving me nuts. So what's going on is bad actors just continue to violate the GDPR but throw up cookie banners purely as a formality? I suppose this raises the question how will California enforce this?
beardyw 4y ago
With disparate laws in every legislation, it will I think become increasingly burdensome to own a website. If you can't reliably determine where your user is, you must satisfy all of the laws simultaneously - until even that becomes impossible.
- chmod775 4y ago
  Only if you do business in that jurisdiction. I'm pretty sure some of the websites I'm running are breaking laws in about fifty countries, but I don't care because I don't live or do business there.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  I have a website to host some basic static content and maybe a few pieces of text. I don't feel like this makes my life any more burdensome. Do you maybe mean that it will become increasingly burdensome to own a website that collects analytics on users, or something similar?
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    An enthusiast web forum that captures IP address, often used for helping to enforce troll bans.
    - WaxProlix 4y ago
      They're also not businesses, usually. I didn't read the entirety of the bill, but does an IP address alone constitute PII here?
      - judge2020 4y ago
        Yes, IPs are PII given they can be linked across websites. In addition, many ISPs in the US do dynamic IP assignment but will let you keep your ipv4 for years if you don't go offline for too long (i've gone 24 hours without the router connected to the internet on ATT without losing my IP). And the 'business' requirement is more about "doing business" in the state and not "the service provider is a legally registered business", so individuals also must comply.
waynesonfire 4y ago
This is all great. I havn't read the entire thing but it's basically saying that if your website is likely to be visited by a child, you have to provide the highest level of privacy. > require a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including configuring a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level of privacy I'll take that as an adult. I hate having to go through the settings of a newly installed application to disable all privacy violating settings. Also, if someone can point it out, where does it say that it'll require every website to authenticate the users age?
- deleted 4y ago
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- keneda7 4y ago
  Here is the text of the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2273 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Section 1-5: (5) Children should be afforded protections not only by online products and services specifically directed at them, but by all online products and services they are likely to access. In order to help support the design of online products, services, and features, businesses should take into account the unique needs of different age ranges, including the following developmental stages: 0 to 5 years of age or “preliterate and early literacy”; 6 to 9 years of age or “core primary school years”; 10 to 12 years of age or “transition years”; 13 to 15 years of age or “early teens”; and 16 to 17 years of age or “approaching adulthood”. adulthood.” I don't know if I fully agree with it being required on every website but the arguments claiming that typically seem to say: Who gets to define "likely access"? If a website link gets posted on a kids forum or social media does that not mean the site will likely be accessed by children?
  - saurik 4y ago
    The bill (now) has a section defining "likely to be accessed by children" that provides 5 ways for that to be satisfied: 1) it is directed at children as defined by some other law (which I haven't looked up but I believe is why YouTube now asks you constantly if your content is directed at children and then limits certain player features if it is), 2) someone does research showing it to be true (which is probably the most important one as it isn't clear how this state gets tripped in a way which notifies the business), 3) there are ads on the site clearly marketing towards children (which might be weird if you are an ad marketplace), 4) your website is similar in scope to a website someone already did the research for (in #2) to show that it is being used by children, or 5) if the company internally keeps statistics and realizes "oh no it is being accessed by children" (which to me is an argument to not keep statistics). I don't like this bill and think it is at best an example of the politicians' syllogism and at worst a trash fire of regulatory inefficiency, but it would be good to analyze and complain about the actual indicators mentioned in the bill now that they exist as otherwise the people working on this bill can (and in my experience will) discount your complaint as "we already fixed that".
scarface74 4y ago
It amazes me how often the HN crowd calls for the government to regulate the Internet and then every time that a law is proposed to pass regulation on the internet it is universally derided. But still somehow, there is this feeling that giving the government more power is good.
- warkdarrior 4y ago
  "They are not blocking/regulating the right websites [i.e., the websites I do not like]."
- beej71 4y ago
  Maybe the HN crowd isn't homogenous.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    The HN crowd is quite homogenous about wanting the government to regulate technology companies in the abstract. When the government actually does get involved it’s a different thing.
johndhi 4y ago
Umm wait lol this blog is from June. This bill passed yesterday. It's the law now.
- c0decracker 4y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but it still needs to be rubber stamped by Newsom. I am sorry did I say rubber stampted? I meant signed with a significant amount of internal deliberation of the effect of this bill on wellbeing of California as a state.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Newsom vetoed 66 bills last year, 56 of which had passed the legislature with "veto-proof" majorities.
    - c0decracker 4y ago
      Thanks for the clarification jeffbee. My sarcasm was unwarranted. I just dislike our governor, even though he does, sometimes, make the call that is more aligned with my values.
- hnburnsy 4y ago
  here is the update... https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/08/op-ed-the-plan-to-blow-up-the-internet-ostensibly-to-protect-kids-online-regarding-ab-2273.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/08/op-ed-the-plan...
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trasz 4y ago
tl;dr making it harder to exploit your users can lower the (already absurdly high) profits Of course because this doesn't profit companies like Google or Facebook, they'll do anything they can to promote voices opposed to it. And because they control what most people are shown as "the Internet", they might succeed. A properly working, democratic government is the only thing that can protect the society from corporations. If you trust the government less than corporations, it's probably because your government is shit.
- nickpp 4y ago
  Why would a government be non-shit? Corporations need to make something useful to someone to get their profits and they are also kept in check by their competitors (unless they have a government-granted monopoly, of course). Governments only need to fool enough voters to get re-elected. That is easily done these days with media, propaganda, and plenty of populism (vote me and I’ll steal from creators and throw some your way). Most governments on the planet are shit, both historically and presently.
  - trasz 4y ago
    The fact that corporation does something useful for _someone_ doesn't mean they don't do it by exploiting everyone else. And in many markets monopolies form naturally, eg due to network effect. Facebook is a good example.
    - nickpp 4y ago
      Eagerly awaiting for some examples of corporations exploiting everyone without alternatives. Meanwhile my government is taking 50% of my monthly income giving me in return the shittiest services, services I would gladly buy from the free market instead. Facebook is indeed an excellent example of an often vilified corporation which is: 1. not a monopoly (plenty of competition around, from twitter to tiktok and even this very site) 2. providing its services to users happy to give their attention and privacy in return 3. easily replaced - my kids don't even use it and escaping it is simply... not using it really
averysmallbird 4y ago
> Will California Eliminate Anonymous Web Browsing? tldr; no.
ParksNet 4y ago
California is following the WEF Agenda on Digital Identity: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/digital-identity/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/digital-identity/ The goal is to de-anonymize all dissent, and unperson anyone who dares criticize the regime. See: Canadian truckers, Australian anti-lockdowns moms, etc. If you want to protect children from adult content, just require ISPs to block a list of explicit websites unless the service owner opts-in.
geoelectric 4y ago
The Clinton admin tried an "ID everyone to access the site" law federally back in the 90s as part of Clinton/Gore's attempt to censor the internet and it got knocked down for constitutionality concerns. Is CA just relying on the crunchy state politics plus the right-biased SCOTUS to pass this with no challenge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act
- cryptonector 4y ago
  Why wouldn't a left-biased SCOTUS also bless things a left-biased legislature wants? I'm inclined to believe that the makeup of the SCOTUS wouldn't make that much difference in a case about this.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Scalia, while genuinely a bad person, would never have gone for this, and he was certainly on the right.
    - cryptonector 4y ago
      That's almost certainly true of Scalia. He who spearheaded the "federalism revolution" right up until a case about drugs came up, then he did an abrupt 180 on that in Raich. But it's likely not true of Thomas. Is it true of the rest? Who knows. The liberals might well side with California's liberal government. Hard to say. Even if that would surprise you, Scalia's turn in Raich surprised many. It's hard to predict the SCOTUS' decisions.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  You can't really compare the 90s to today. Kids weren't online 24/7 through smartphones. Cyber bullying and sexting were unknowns.
- deleted 4y ago
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reillyse 4y ago
The answer to any question posed in a title is no. Try it sometime. If you see a title question mentally just say “no”. The reasons for this law of media are manifold but boil down to 1) if there was evidence that the thing would happen they would state it. I.e. this title would read California will eliminate.. 2) there is no 2 What’s left is for you the reader to try and figure out why the author is trying to scare people by posing a question even they know can only be answered in the negative.
- deleted 4y ago
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- pessimizer 4y ago
  https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=10&prefix=false&query=betteridge&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=10&prefix=false&q... "tome's law: In any discussion about an article whose title is a question, Betteridge's law is mentioned with probability 1." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549
aaaddaaaaa1112 4y ago
golemotron 4y ago
SCOTUS is going to smack down California eventually on the extra-territorial impact of its laws. There's a case pending about the impact of their recent legislation on humane livestock handling for meat sold in California. Regardless, of how people feel about the livestock issue, single states should not be able create legislation that forces entire national and international industries to re-tool. If you want to do that you should be a country, not a state.
- Bud 4y ago
  Nobody is "forcing" anything, here. Obviously. California has substantial market power. It is entirely within its rights to dictate how things will be done within California. If that means that some companies then feel some financial inventive to do it that way in general because it's easier, then that's just too bad.
  - golemotron 4y ago
    Brush up on the history of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. It's likely that it will be in the news when SCOTUS considers the pork case next year.
    - Bud 4y ago
      Brush up on California's emission standards for cars. And the history of its standards for gasoline. BTW, arguing that the current joke of a SCOTUS might rule against California isn't a real argument.
      - golemotron 4y ago
        Be careful what you wish for. Extra-territoriality is a useful concept for Blue states defending themselves from commercial effects of laws passed in Red states too. You can have federalism while being a good neighbor.
- idontpost 4y ago
  Funny how fascists only care about this when it's California doing it, and not Texas.
KerrAvon 4y ago
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/29/age-verification-providers-say-dont-worry-about-california-design-code-youll-just-have-to-scan-your-face-for-every-website-you-visit/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/29/age-verification-provide...
- deleted 4y ago
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chlodwig 4y ago
As a parent and also a startup guy and big fan of the anonymous web, my preferred solution would be a requirement for major operating system and browser makers to allow me to set an age linked to my child's account that gets sent as an HTTP header on every web request. That way the provider does not have to force adults to login or reveal their identity to access unmoderated content, the provider just needs to be legally required to not serve minors certain content if they see the HTTP header.
- Ferrotin 4y ago
  This would create an impossible moderation burden on any website with user-posted content.
  - chlodwig 4y ago
    Any site that is used by children and has user-posted content should spend enough on moderation to keep that user-posted content safe, and they should charge whatever they need to charge to be able to afford the moderation. Children don't need access to unmoderated, advertising supported forums. If I really trusted my teenager to be able to handle unmoderated user-posted content, I, the parent, could remove the age restrictions on their accounts myself.
    - ipnon 4y ago
      Every website is used by children. Law of large numbers, Murphy’s law means if any website is accessible online and children have internet access, eventually a child will visit it. I don’t think we should have books moderate their content for children. The library, parents, teachers and everyone else responsible for children should take the responsibility to restrict these children’s access to material deemed inappropriate. This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. I don’t think controversial shoehorn legislation is going to work any better, but it will come with some downsides.
      - r00fus 4y ago
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smm11 4y ago
The more that breaks the internet as we know it, the better.
Jevon23 4y ago
Have your website block visitors from California. Problem solved.
srvmshr 4y ago
I hope, this Bill would, in some way reduce or eliminate clickbaity & provocative images in internet ads, instead of adding one more GDPR type banner. As a adult of young parent age, I see racy ads as a prime driver of children getting funneled to adult & graphic content. A superficial understanding of current adtech points that Ad companies increasingly use IP to show the type of ads - and that has a potential to misidentify who's on the user end: a grown adult looking for some intimate connections or an underage child who shouldn't be exposed to gambling, betting, pornography and the likes.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
Something I've observed is outrage over China only to see it in my Western society some years later. I suppose that the love/anxiety for children is the same everywhere. For example many parents are currently concerned with "screen time".
karaterobot 4y ago
This legislation does seem rather poorly written, at least in the excerpted sections. By poorly written, I mean vague and easily misinterpreted. With GDPR, one consequence of the vagueness is the current hellscape of ubiquitous cookie popups on the web, most of which don't actually comply with the regulation, and most of which have not actually empowered consumers in any way.
- remram 4y ago
  Keep in mind that this article was written two months before the bill passed. It underwent multiple revisions since. I don't know why we are discussing a law that was passed yesterday under a link to a two-month-old review of a different version. That seems a bit contrary to "news".
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AlanYx 4y ago
The linked page doesn't mention it, but the author of this article (Goldman) is a professor of law at Santa Clara University law school. So his reading of the text of the law and its likely interpretation is probably somewhat accurate (or at least more likely to be accurate than someone with no background in tech law).
- remram 4y ago
  It's from a previous version of the bill and it shows. Many parts are no longer factual, like the fact that it treats everyone under 18 equally (bill: "businesses should take into account the unique needs of different age ranges, including ...").
sonicrocketman 4y ago
Am I missing something? Services are allowed to collect the data they need to perform their essential function right? (my reading says yes) This just says: don't collect info on children you don't need and assume people are protected unless you verify otherwise. Just don't collect the info you don't need. Seems straight-forward to me.
- SalimoS 4y ago
  yeah but how they prove you aren't a child, for a child safe default internet ???
  - paxys 4y ago
    The bill says that if the site can't prove that their user is an adult then they apply the same safety standards to everyone.
    - remram 4y ago
      I might have missed that part of the bill, do you have a quote?
  - sonicrocketman 4y ago
    If I read this correctly: if you aren't collecting the info (for ads, etc) you don't need to verify anything. A non-tracking, non-data surveillance website is fine.
- remram 4y ago
  The intent seems to plug the hole in COPPA, where a service could pretend they are not marketed at children and avoid all the requirements, even though they know a lot of children (or even a majority of children) use their service. For example, social media platforms. Now you need to take steps if "A significant amount of the audience [...] is determined, based on internal company research, to be children." I don't see anything about requiring every site to check if every visitor might be a child and keeping that personal information for compliance. I don't know where this rhetoric comes from.
rank0 4y ago
Insanity. It’s shocking to see so much support here ITT. Nobody should have to fork over biometrics and government IDs to get on the web.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Frankly, rather than wrapping this in child protection rhetoric, this should have just been a universal privacy protection law. If they had skipped all this "Think of the Kids!" nonsense, and just banned the utterly abominable data gathering rampant on the internet today, this kind of negative side effect could be completely avoided. What we need is basic, common sense legislation that says: - Gather no more data than you need for business purposes. Persist even less. If you can't express a specific business purpose for the data, you can't gather it. - Share no more data than you need to for business purposes, and with as few parties as possible. - Publicize those specific business purposes paired with what categories of data you collect, and who you share it with. This should be a table, with 4 columns: "category", "justification", and "Shared With", "Duration". - Whatever data you do gather, you're liable for, with good-faith attempts at following industry best security practices being an mitigating factor but not a complete defense in civil suites following a data breach. The GDPR didn't go far enough: the law should be explicit in stating that the user CANNOT consent to data being gathered about them in excess of what a service they are actively engaging with needs for legitimate business purposes. The less wiggle room you give, the less ridiculous, user-hostile attempts to circumvent the law you'll have.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Both parties are actively attempting to limit internet freedom from various angles. I think the only "relatively big party" that supports a free and open internet is the Libertarian party.
mdavis6890 4y ago
I’m all for websites collecting less personal information. But I wish they wouldn’t base it in child status. Now all I read is “websites must collect a ton of personal information about you and send it to the government to verify your age, and also tell them all the websites you visit.” Why are we so worried about corporations getting our data? The worst thing they’ll do is try to sell me something. It’s the government I’m worried about - they can do far worse.
- remram 4y ago
  > websites must collect a ton of personal information about you and send it to the government to verify your age, and also tell them all the websites you visit None of this is in the bill though.

191 points by dane-pgp 4y ago

The fun thing about California laws is that the people that pass them really don't fucking care about dissent to their goals. left or right

LinuxBender 4y ago

Has anyone figured out if this will literally impact the entire internet, or will it only impact people in the US or just people hosting servers in California? If hosting in California is it enough to not utilize a hosting providers presence in California, or must everyone migrate to providers that do not have a presence in California?

shadowgovt 4y ago
Does the GDPR only impact people hosting in Europe?
- tgv 4y ago
  For some websites, yes, but on one hand the EU is a lot bigger, while on the other hand California is home to Google and facebook.
judge2020 4y ago
> Existing law, the Parent’s Accountability and Child Protection Act, requires a person or business that conducts business in California and that seeks to sell specified products or services to take reasonable steps to ensure that the purchaser is of legal age at the time of purchase or delivery, including verifying the age of the purchaser. My understanding is that the bill applies to the same businesses that the mentioned law does. Considering California has 40M people, that's not a cohort businesses can shut off from the internet.
- phoe-krk 4y ago
  > Considering California has 40M people, that's not a cohort businesses can shut off from the internet. As someone who lives in a 447-million European Union and who keeps on getting HTTP 451 responses from various US-based services and websites after GDPR has gone into effect, I can't help but chuckle at your comment.
  - tschwimmer 4y ago
    The most common users of "We're sorry but we can't be bothered to figure out how to comply with GDPR" notices I've seen are for smaller US-based media organizations. The newspapers like the Ft. Worth Star Telegram or the St. Louis Post Dispatch (random examples, not sure if they actually block EU traffic) have (probably correctly IMO) concluded that the cost to comply with GDPR is likely to be more the than the revenue that could be gained by allowing the occasional EU reader and so have concluded that the most rational choice of action is to block access from the EU. This is a very different proposition than saying that Tik Tok, Youtube and Facebook would block CA-based users. In addition to the obvious fact that they all have hundreds or thousands of employees in CA, they would be forgoing one of their most important markets in terms of advertising. Furthermore, a lot of the top creators on these platforms live in greater LA. It's a non-starter. If you're doing anything social for anything that's not an domestic only market (e.g. VKontakte, WeChat) then you need California.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      > have concluded that the cost to comply with GDPR is likely to be more > the than the revenue that could be gained by allowing the occasional EU reader Why would anybody read the news from a source whose prime motivation is anything other than dissemination of information? Not to excuse the profit motivation, but simply not setting any cookies is as simple a "fix" as is blocking access, unless one were to argue for the marginal cost of serving the occasional additional webpage.
      - tschwimmer 4y ago
pwg 4y ago
Based on many of the "unknown reach" statements the author identified, it is impossible to say. One potential outcome, at least for US businesses where their legal teams believe they have some nexus to California, will be either: 1) apply these rules to any incoming California IP address; or 2) apply these rules to everyone, no matter where they are located. Naturally, the easier route above is to just do #2, which means these changes could, much like the EU's GDPR resulted in paranoid legal teams adding "cookie banners" everywhere, impact all sites that have any US presence at all.
- nilespotter 4y ago
  > much like the EU's GDPR resulted in paranoid legal teams adding "cookie banners" everywhere Shoutout to this [1] firefox plugin that I rely on daily [1] https://github.com/jannisch/cookie-popup-blocker https://github.com/jannisch/cookie-popup-blocker
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  (1) is tricky. Laws like this do not apply to IP addresses AFAICT, they apply to people. Someone CA law applies to can access your server using a non-CA IP address and someone not restricted by this law can access your server using a CA address. I'd be surprised if you'd be "off the hook" for a child covered under this law accessing your service via a VPN. And, as a user, I'd be upset if I couldn't access your site using mullvad. I wonder if banning CA users in your ToS is sufficient for passing the burden of this law down to CA residents?
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    We may need an `X-Applicable-Laws` HTTP header.
ransom1538 4y ago
Eh. If this passed, most internet based firms will just bail on California. That legalese will invite thousands of law suites.
stickfigure 4y ago
Authors will just move content out of jurisdiction and stop caring. It's really hard to imagine that (say) France will extradite someone to California because their website didn't check your ID. See also: GDPR compliance by US websites.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Well GDPR did succeed in making most US websites badger me about cookies.
mistrial9 4y ago
AFAIK in all of California there are only two real upstream providers for "residential Internet" and every - single - subscriber must pass through their gates. Think of the airport or a modern busy toll bridge in California.. you will be tagged, watched and recorded.. some people really believe this is the way society ought to be run. To respond to the question: yes, it will.. it will polarize and strengthen the darknet, first. Your ordinary Calif. consumer will have to buy more things, second. Fines and lengthy, pointless court action, third.

swader999 4y ago

Society needs anonymous dissent. This is basic.

tgv 4y ago
Needs? As in: twitter and facebook fucked up social structures and we need it?
- swader999 4y ago
  As in this forum for example.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    HN is not anonymous. It's pseudonymous at best.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      The two don't oppose each other. Throwaway accounts are plentiful for those who want to use them, people who want to stick with a name can do that, and those who want to use (or otherwise make clear) their real name can do that.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      HN doesn't even request a mail. For all intends and purposes it is synonymous with anonymity. Sure, there are platforms that don't even use a user handle. Given, you are free to reveal anything about you.
  - tgv 4y ago
    Now show me how that scales to 8B people ranting away. HN is only decent because of its strict moderation. Twitter and facebook, two examples I didn't name accidentally, don't do that, have a much larger audience, and did sow division, largely because they are anonymous.
arcticbull 4y ago

tharne 4y ago

If you're betting on California doing something stupid, you always want to go long.

deleted 4y ago
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paxys 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... The author is right that: 1. Every single website and app regardless of whether it is specifically built for kids or not is covered by this bill, and 2. It is virtually impossible to identify and segment your user base and apply the bill's protections to only those you can 100% confirm are under 18. So, the likely outcome is that this bill becomes an enhanced CCPA and something businesses have to generally comply with for every user. Looking at the actual contents of the bill though, my response to that is – great! I do want to be treated like a child online. I want sites to present terms of service in a language I can understand. I want them to set my account's privacy settings to the highest offered by default. I want apps to remove dark patterns that get me to spend money. I don't want them to store my data unless using it to provide a service. I want them to tell me up front if my browsing is being monitored by someone else. I want actual consequences if a company decides to leak all my personal data. (All of these are provisions that will be enforced). The author is critical of the bill as a whole but I don't see any argument against any of the individual provisions. I also don't get where the "eliminate anonymous web browsing" in the title comes from. If anything it will make it less likely for sites to track you.

Alupis 4y ago
The collection of identifying information for every user on your website is antithetical to the goals of CCPA and anyone that values any resemblance of privacy. Further, business do not want to be in charge of validating PII information, nor do they want to place roadblocks to casual users. The darn cookies and GDPR popups are already annoying enough. Are we trying to make the web unusable? This is just insanity, and will lead to a bunch of ecommerce businesses and website companies leaving CA. ie, no one will comply unless they have absolutely zero other choices.
- zepppotemkin 4y ago
  Where is the need to do that specified in the actual bill? https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2273 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... the majority of the bill is restrictions on collecting personal information in general I'm not sure most ecommerce sites would meet the criteria as something marketed and targeted at children I agree that 'likely visited by children' is nebulous but this seems to be heavily aimed at live streaming/recording services(twitch, tiktok .. etc), large public social forums (discord) and things like youtube kids

midhhhthrow 4y ago

I wish people would stop asking the government to raise their children. I am a parent. If you are a parent, start acting like one and watch your kids a lot more closely. Or better yet, actually spend time with them and stop using iPads as a baby sitter. I know this is harsh and may get downvoted but pared really need to start taking more responsibility on these matters

ok_dad 4y ago
The problem is, that in today's world, more and more time has been taken away from people because they have to work much more in order to survive the same way. Putting a kid on an iPad or the TV for an hour while you have a meeting is almost necessary. Not as many people live in a close-knit neighborhood, either, so help is non-existent for many. I know my wife and I struggle to find time to spend with our son since we both have to work. The only good thing for us is we both work from home, so we don't have an additional requirement to commute for several more hours or have to find a sitter or daycare too often. We still sometimes have to hire help to watch him when we both have busy days/weeks. You folks (not specific to the OP here) have to stop assuming everyone has the same amount of free time as you do, or perhaps some of you folks don't have kids and don't realize just how much time and effort they are!
- midhhhthrow 4y ago
  Yeah but why do kids need to be online at all? For millions of years kids never had computers and they grew up just fine. In fact they grew up with fewer cases of depression etc. I’ve got a kid and I don’t let them online unless I’m there interacting with them, doing stuff together. Maybe I’ll let them watch for 15min for a job well done but not for hours on end
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Kids need to be doing what other kids the same age are doing. What that is has obviously changed throughout history with technology etc. Which doesn't mean I think it's perfectly fine to let them spend hours online or doing anything sedentary (even reading books) for extended periods every day, but stopping your kids from taking part in activities all their friends/classmates do isn't likely to be good for them either.

EGreg 4y ago

Didn’t Britain recently pass a similar law? What was the name?

seti0Cha 4y ago
It's mentioned in the article, along with why that should not be a model for California.
jacooper 4y ago
AFAIK it didn't pass, it was still in the planning phase, and then because of the governmental mess they have, it still yet to pass.

amanaplanacanal 4y ago

This seems universally good. If you can’t determine that your user is an adult, don’t collect or store personal information on them beyond what is necessary to provide the service.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
As universally good as GDPR maybe, where the actual results will be largely worse for everyone.
- trasz 4y ago
  If you mean the cookie banners, it's the result of GDPR not being enforced strictly enough, so companies can use the banner to pretend they're not breaking the law.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    This has been driving me nuts. So what's going on is bad actors just continue to violate the GDPR but throw up cookie banners purely as a formality? I suppose this raises the question how will California enforce this?

beardyw 4y ago

With disparate laws in every legislation, it will I think become increasingly burdensome to own a website. If you can't reliably determine where your user is, you must satisfy all of the laws simultaneously - until even that becomes impossible.

chmod775 4y ago
Only if you do business in that jurisdiction. I'm pretty sure some of the websites I'm running are breaking laws in about fifty countries, but I don't care because I don't live or do business there.
WaxProlix 4y ago
I have a website to host some basic static content and maybe a few pieces of text. I don't feel like this makes my life any more burdensome. Do you maybe mean that it will become increasingly burdensome to own a website that collects analytics on users, or something similar?
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  An enthusiast web forum that captures IP address, often used for helping to enforce troll bans.
  - WaxProlix 4y ago
    They're also not businesses, usually. I didn't read the entirety of the bill, but does an IP address alone constitute PII here?
    - judge2020 4y ago
      Yes, IPs are PII given they can be linked across websites. In addition, many ISPs in the US do dynamic IP assignment but will let you keep your ipv4 for years if you don't go offline for too long (i've gone 24 hours without the router connected to the internet on ATT without losing my IP). And the 'business' requirement is more about "doing business" in the state and not "the service provider is a legally registered business", so individuals also must comply.

waynesonfire 4y ago

This is all great. I havn't read the entire thing but it's basically saying that if your website is likely to be visited by a child, you have to provide the highest level of privacy. > require a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including configuring a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level of privacy I'll take that as an adult. I hate having to go through the settings of a newly installed application to disable all privacy violating settings. Also, if someone can point it out, where does it say that it'll require every website to authenticate the users age?

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keneda7 4y ago
Here is the text of the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2273 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Section 1-5: (5) Children should be afforded protections not only by online products and services specifically directed at them, but by all online products and services they are likely to access. In order to help support the design of online products, services, and features, businesses should take into account the unique needs of different age ranges, including the following developmental stages: 0 to 5 years of age or “preliterate and early literacy”; 6 to 9 years of age or “core primary school years”; 10 to 12 years of age or “transition years”; 13 to 15 years of age or “early teens”; and 16 to 17 years of age or “approaching adulthood”. adulthood.” I don't know if I fully agree with it being required on every website but the arguments claiming that typically seem to say: Who gets to define "likely access"? If a website link gets posted on a kids forum or social media does that not mean the site will likely be accessed by children?
- saurik 4y ago
  The bill (now) has a section defining "likely to be accessed by children" that provides 5 ways for that to be satisfied: 1) it is directed at children as defined by some other law (which I haven't looked up but I believe is why YouTube now asks you constantly if your content is directed at children and then limits certain player features if it is), 2) someone does research showing it to be true (which is probably the most important one as it isn't clear how this state gets tripped in a way which notifies the business), 3) there are ads on the site clearly marketing towards children (which might be weird if you are an ad marketplace), 4) your website is similar in scope to a website someone already did the research for (in #2) to show that it is being used by children, or 5) if the company internally keeps statistics and realizes "oh no it is being accessed by children" (which to me is an argument to not keep statistics). I don't like this bill and think it is at best an example of the politicians' syllogism and at worst a trash fire of regulatory inefficiency, but it would be good to analyze and complain about the actual indicators mentioned in the bill now that they exist as otherwise the people working on this bill can (and in my experience will) discount your complaint as "we already fixed that".

scarface74 4y ago

It amazes me how often the HN crowd calls for the government to regulate the Internet and then every time that a law is proposed to pass regulation on the internet it is universally derided. But still somehow, there is this feeling that giving the government more power is good.

warkdarrior 4y ago
"They are not blocking/regulating the right websites [i.e., the websites I do not like]."
beej71 4y ago
Maybe the HN crowd isn't homogenous.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The HN crowd is quite homogenous about wanting the government to regulate technology companies in the abstract. When the government actually does get involved it’s a different thing.

johndhi 4y ago

Umm wait lol this blog is from June. This bill passed yesterday. It's the law now.

c0decracker 4y ago
Not to be pedantic, but it still needs to be rubber stamped by Newsom. I am sorry did I say rubber stampted? I meant signed with a significant amount of internal deliberation of the effect of this bill on wellbeing of California as a state.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Newsom vetoed 66 bills last year, 56 of which had passed the legislature with "veto-proof" majorities.
  - c0decracker 4y ago
    Thanks for the clarification jeffbee. My sarcasm was unwarranted. I just dislike our governor, even though he does, sometimes, make the call that is more aligned with my values.
hnburnsy 4y ago
here is the update... https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/08/op-ed-the-plan-to-blow-up-the-internet-ostensibly-to-protect-kids-online-regarding-ab-2273.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/08/op-ed-the-plan...

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trasz 4y ago

tl;dr making it harder to exploit your users can lower the (already absurdly high) profits Of course because this doesn't profit companies like Google or Facebook, they'll do anything they can to promote voices opposed to it. And because they control what most people are shown as "the Internet", they might succeed. A properly working, democratic government is the only thing that can protect the society from corporations. If you trust the government less than corporations, it's probably because your government is shit.

nickpp 4y ago
Why would a government be non-shit? Corporations need to make something useful to someone to get their profits and they are also kept in check by their competitors (unless they have a government-granted monopoly, of course). Governments only need to fool enough voters to get re-elected. That is easily done these days with media, propaganda, and plenty of populism (vote me and I’ll steal from creators and throw some your way). Most governments on the planet are shit, both historically and presently.
- trasz 4y ago
  The fact that corporation does something useful for _someone_ doesn't mean they don't do it by exploiting everyone else. And in many markets monopolies form naturally, eg due to network effect. Facebook is a good example.
  - nickpp 4y ago
    Eagerly awaiting for some examples of corporations exploiting everyone without alternatives. Meanwhile my government is taking 50% of my monthly income giving me in return the shittiest services, services I would gladly buy from the free market instead. Facebook is indeed an excellent example of an often vilified corporation which is: 1. not a monopoly (plenty of competition around, from twitter to tiktok and even this very site) 2. providing its services to users happy to give their attention and privacy in return 3. easily replaced - my kids don't even use it and escaping it is simply... not using it really

averysmallbird 4y ago

> Will California Eliminate Anonymous Web Browsing? tldr; no.

ParksNet 4y ago

California is following the WEF Agenda on Digital Identity: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/digital-identity/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/digital-identity/ The goal is to de-anonymize all dissent, and unperson anyone who dares criticize the regime. See: Canadian truckers, Australian anti-lockdowns moms, etc. If you want to protect children from adult content, just require ISPs to block a list of explicit websites unless the service owner opts-in.

geoelectric 4y ago

The Clinton admin tried an "ID everyone to access the site" law federally back in the 90s as part of Clinton/Gore's attempt to censor the internet and it got knocked down for constitutionality concerns. Is CA just relying on the crunchy state politics plus the right-biased SCOTUS to pass this with no challenge? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act

cryptonector 4y ago
Why wouldn't a left-biased SCOTUS also bless things a left-biased legislature wants? I'm inclined to believe that the makeup of the SCOTUS wouldn't make that much difference in a case about this.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Scalia, while genuinely a bad person, would never have gone for this, and he was certainly on the right.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    That's almost certainly true of Scalia. He who spearheaded the "federalism revolution" right up until a case about drugs came up, then he did an abrupt 180 on that in Raich. But it's likely not true of Thomas. Is it true of the rest? Who knows. The liberals might well side with California's liberal government. Hard to say. Even if that would surprise you, Scalia's turn in Raich surprised many. It's hard to predict the SCOTUS' decisions.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
You can't really compare the 90s to today. Kids weren't online 24/7 through smartphones. Cyber bullying and sexting were unknowns.
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reillyse 4y ago

The answer to any question posed in a title is no. Try it sometime. If you see a title question mentally just say “no”. The reasons for this law of media are manifold but boil down to 1) if there was evidence that the thing would happen they would state it. I.e. this title would read California will eliminate.. 2) there is no 2 What’s left is for you the reader to try and figure out why the author is trying to scare people by posing a question even they know can only be answered in the negative.

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pessimizer 4y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=10&prefix=false&query=betteridge&sort=byDate&type=all https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=10&prefix=false&q... "tome's law: In any discussion about an article whose title is a question, Betteridge's law is mentioned with probability 1." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077549

aaaddaaaaa1112 4y ago

golemotron 4y ago

SCOTUS is going to smack down California eventually on the extra-territorial impact of its laws. There's a case pending about the impact of their recent legislation on humane livestock handling for meat sold in California. Regardless, of how people feel about the livestock issue, single states should not be able create legislation that forces entire national and international industries to re-tool. If you want to do that you should be a country, not a state.

Bud 4y ago
Nobody is "forcing" anything, here. Obviously. California has substantial market power. It is entirely within its rights to dictate how things will be done within California. If that means that some companies then feel some financial inventive to do it that way in general because it's easier, then that's just too bad.
- golemotron 4y ago
  Brush up on the history of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution. It's likely that it will be in the news when SCOTUS considers the pork case next year.
  - Bud 4y ago
    Brush up on California's emission standards for cars. And the history of its standards for gasoline. BTW, arguing that the current joke of a SCOTUS might rule against California isn't a real argument.
    - golemotron 4y ago
      Be careful what you wish for. Extra-territoriality is a useful concept for Blue states defending themselves from commercial effects of laws passed in Red states too. You can have federalism while being a good neighbor.
idontpost 4y ago
Funny how fascists only care about this when it's California doing it, and not Texas.

KerrAvon 4y ago

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/29/age-verification-providers-say-dont-worry-about-california-design-code-youll-just-have-to-scan-your-face-for-every-website-you-visit/ https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/29/age-verification-provide...

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chlodwig 4y ago

As a parent and also a startup guy and big fan of the anonymous web, my preferred solution would be a requirement for major operating system and browser makers to allow me to set an age linked to my child's account that gets sent as an HTTP header on every web request. That way the provider does not have to force adults to login or reveal their identity to access unmoderated content, the provider just needs to be legally required to not serve minors certain content if they see the HTTP header.

Ferrotin 4y ago
This would create an impossible moderation burden on any website with user-posted content.
- chlodwig 4y ago
  Any site that is used by children and has user-posted content should spend enough on moderation to keep that user-posted content safe, and they should charge whatever they need to charge to be able to afford the moderation. Children don't need access to unmoderated, advertising supported forums. If I really trusted my teenager to be able to handle unmoderated user-posted content, I, the parent, could remove the age restrictions on their accounts myself.
  - ipnon 4y ago
    Every website is used by children. Law of large numbers, Murphy’s law means if any website is accessible online and children have internet access, eventually a child will visit it. I don’t think we should have books moderate their content for children. The library, parents, teachers and everyone else responsible for children should take the responsibility to restrict these children’s access to material deemed inappropriate. This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. I don’t think controversial shoehorn legislation is going to work any better, but it will come with some downsides.
    - r00fus 4y ago

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smm11 4y ago

The more that breaks the internet as we know it, the better.

Jevon23 4y ago

Have your website block visitors from California. Problem solved.

srvmshr 4y ago

I hope, this Bill would, in some way reduce or eliminate clickbaity & provocative images in internet ads, instead of adding one more GDPR type banner. As a adult of young parent age, I see racy ads as a prime driver of children getting funneled to adult & graphic content. A superficial understanding of current adtech points that Ad companies increasingly use IP to show the type of ads - and that has a potential to misidentify who's on the user end: a grown adult looking for some intimate connections or an underage child who shouldn't be exposed to gambling, betting, pornography and the likes.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

Something I've observed is outrage over China only to see it in my Western society some years later. I suppose that the love/anxiety for children is the same everywhere. For example many parents are currently concerned with "screen time".

karaterobot 4y ago

This legislation does seem rather poorly written, at least in the excerpted sections. By poorly written, I mean vague and easily misinterpreted. With GDPR, one consequence of the vagueness is the current hellscape of ubiquitous cookie popups on the web, most of which don't actually comply with the regulation, and most of which have not actually empowered consumers in any way.

remram 4y ago
Keep in mind that this article was written two months before the bill passed. It underwent multiple revisions since. I don't know why we are discussing a law that was passed yesterday under a link to a two-month-old review of a different version. That seems a bit contrary to "news".

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AlanYx 4y ago

The linked page doesn't mention it, but the author of this article (Goldman) is a professor of law at Santa Clara University law school. So his reading of the text of the law and its likely interpretation is probably somewhat accurate (or at least more likely to be accurate than someone with no background in tech law).

remram 4y ago
It's from a previous version of the bill and it shows. Many parts are no longer factual, like the fact that it treats everyone under 18 equally (bill: "businesses should take into account the unique needs of different age ranges, including ...").

sonicrocketman 4y ago

Am I missing something? Services are allowed to collect the data they need to perform their essential function right? (my reading says yes) This just says: don't collect info on children you don't need and assume people are protected unless you verify otherwise. Just don't collect the info you don't need. Seems straight-forward to me.

SalimoS 4y ago
yeah but how they prove you aren't a child, for a child safe default internet ???
- paxys 4y ago
  The bill says that if the site can't prove that their user is an adult then they apply the same safety standards to everyone.
  - remram 4y ago
    I might have missed that part of the bill, do you have a quote?
- sonicrocketman 4y ago
  If I read this correctly: if you aren't collecting the info (for ads, etc) you don't need to verify anything. A non-tracking, non-data surveillance website is fine.
remram 4y ago
The intent seems to plug the hole in COPPA, where a service could pretend they are not marketed at children and avoid all the requirements, even though they know a lot of children (or even a majority of children) use their service. For example, social media platforms. Now you need to take steps if "A significant amount of the audience [...] is determined, based on internal company research, to be children." I don't see anything about requiring every site to check if every visitor might be a child and keeping that personal information for compliance. I don't know where this rhetoric comes from.

rank0 4y ago

Insanity. It’s shocking to see so much support here ITT. Nobody should have to fork over biometrics and government IDs to get on the web.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago

Frankly, rather than wrapping this in child protection rhetoric, this should have just been a universal privacy protection law. If they had skipped all this "Think of the Kids!" nonsense, and just banned the utterly abominable data gathering rampant on the internet today, this kind of negative side effect could be completely avoided. What we need is basic, common sense legislation that says: - Gather no more data than you need for business purposes. Persist even less. If you can't express a specific business purpose for the data, you can't gather it. - Share no more data than you need to for business purposes, and with as few parties as possible. - Publicize those specific business purposes paired with what categories of data you collect, and who you share it with. This should be a table, with 4 columns: "category", "justification", and "Shared With", "Duration". - Whatever data you do gather, you're liable for, with good-faith attempts at following industry best security practices being an mitigating factor but not a complete defense in civil suites following a data breach. The GDPR didn't go far enough: the law should be explicit in stating that the user CANNOT consent to data being gathered about them in excess of what a service they are actively engaging with needs for legitimate business purposes. The less wiggle room you give, the less ridiculous, user-hostile attempts to circumvent the law you'll have.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Both parties are actively attempting to limit internet freedom from various angles. I think the only "relatively big party" that supports a free and open internet is the Libertarian party.

mdavis6890 4y ago

I’m all for websites collecting less personal information. But I wish they wouldn’t base it in child status. Now all I read is “websites must collect a ton of personal information about you and send it to the government to verify your age, and also tell them all the websites you visit.” Why are we so worried about corporations getting our data? The worst thing they’ll do is try to sell me something. It’s the government I’m worried about - they can do far worse.

remram 4y ago
> websites must collect a ton of personal information about you and send it to the government to verify your age, and also tell them all the websites you visit None of this is in the bill though.