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I might be a little dumb, but I genuinely found the article confusing. I have some questions nonetheless. What exactly is "Age Assurance"? Secondly, why would

I might be a little dumb, but I genuinely found the article confusing. I have some questions nonetheless. What exactly is "Age Assurance"? Secondly, why would Age Assurance hinder new companies that want to create content platforms?

johnnyanmac 3y ago
It's google's own terminology based on their proposal (PDF warning): https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.google/en//resources/youth-legislative-framework.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.goog... >Where required, age assurance – which can range from declaration to inference and verication – should be risk-based, preserving users’ access to information and services, and respecting their privacy. so it's purposfully vague. It can be anything from a checkbox you check saying "I'm 13/18/etc." to "we require a face scan or governent issued ID in order to verify you". If you believe their claim, they want to do something more towards the former except with 18+ sites. If you don't believe their claim, you probably veer more towards Techdirt's cynicism as it being sugarcoating for semi-invasive age verification: >But… it’s not? It’s basically lobbying for age verification, just in the guise of “age assurance,” which is effectively “age verification, but if you’re a smaller company you can get it wrong some undefined amount of time, until someone sues you.” I mean, what’s here is not “lobbying against age verification,” it’s basically saying “here’s how to require age verification.” ----------- >Secondly, why would Age Assurance hinder new companies that want to create content platforms? Regulation. the more you need to do to get your site off the ground (and make its money back), the higher the cost. Or if they ignore/are ignorant of it they can be sued out of the race. This can be good (GDPR requirements to protect privacy), but like everything we need to weigh if the effect is worth the outcome. I am admittedly more scrutiny on if every website over X size needs to make sure their site is "child friendly".

johnnyanmac 3y ago

It's google's own terminology based on their proposal (PDF warning): https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.google/en//resources/youth-legislative-framework.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/publicpolicy.goog... >Where required, age assurance – which can range from declaration to inference and verication – should be risk-based, preserving users’ access to information and services, and respecting their privacy. so it's purposfully vague. It can be anything from a checkbox you check saying "I'm 13/18/etc." to "we require a face scan or governent issued ID in order to verify you". If you believe their claim, they want to do something more towards the former except with 18+ sites. If you don't believe their claim, you probably veer more towards Techdirt's cynicism as it being sugarcoating for semi-invasive age verification: >But… it’s not? It’s basically lobbying for age verification, just in the guise of “age assurance,” which is effectively “age verification, but if you’re a smaller company you can get it wrong some undefined amount of time, until someone sues you.” I mean, what’s here is not “lobbying against age verification,” it’s basically saying “here’s how to require age verification.” ----------- >Secondly, why would Age Assurance hinder new companies that want to create content platforms? Regulation. the more you need to do to get your site off the ground (and make its money back), the higher the cost. Or if they ignore/are ignorant of it they can be sued out of the race. This can be good (GDPR requirements to protect privacy), but like everything we need to weigh if the effect is worth the outcome. I am admittedly more scrutiny on if every website over X size needs to make sure their site is "child friendly".