3 ms·

One of the more underappreciated negative effects of COPPA has been normalizing sites' asking for birth dates they do not need and should not have.

dredmorbius 2y ago
Any DoB > 18 years should more than suffice. The practice suggested of offering a DoB at the earliest date accepted by the system (a practice I've long since adopted ... amongst other things, 100+ y.o. individuals tend to have weak appeal to advertisers) will also suffice. I've also felt that, as with several other online issues, the matter of age-gating is probably best handled at the ISP level. Most people have a fairly strong relationship with their ISP (whether willingly or happily is another matter), and a combination of site-specific self-ratings (which would also fall under consumer-protection/fraud regulation) and an ISP toggle to enable or disable +18 / NSFW / sexual content, or other categories on an account-wide basis would enable a household or business to set such filters with a minimum of hassle. For instances where multi-level tiers of access would be required, the ISP should be able to provide that through two or more virtual service addresses (effectively VPNs which various devices are configured through). And a household or business should be able to define specific exceptions to any filtering rules to avoid the overclassification problem and put ultimate control in the subscriber's hands rather than the ISP's.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- amarant 2y ago
  In theory this is a good idea, but in practice I'm not sure I trust my ISP to manage that system. I'm not worried that they'll leak my data, they already do that, but I think they'd probably lock me out of content they shouldn't because of bugs and/or poorly designed system.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    In practice your ISP already has this information and more (all traffic you're currently transacting). The information is less distributed than it would be in the case of providing all and sundry online publishers with that same information, and would offer less effective privacy control over how that information is used. For those who'd bypass their ISP's access limitations/controls using a VPN ... you've now got additional complications and really no less effective control than voluntary age-disclosure rules. Another option would be imputed age classification, which again is something that major sites (e.g., Google, YouTube, FB, Instagram, TikTok) can already perform via algorithmic / AI assessments of marketing categories based off of on-site activities, consumption trends, etc.
    - amarant 2y ago
      I think you may have misunderstood my post, as you appear to be arguing against me while basically repeating my sentiment. Read again and I you will find I say I am NOT worried about data leakage, but only that the ISP will lock me out of content they shouldn't because they're incompetent. YMMV but my ISP would definitely mess that up somehow.
- franga2000 2y ago
  Ok but households with underage people tend to also contain adults, who might want access to such content... Without incredibly invasive technical measures, proper filtering just isn't possible. And given how trivial it is to bypass basically any filtering even for someone with no tech knowledge, I don't see a reason to even try.
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    See my last 'graph. Different devices would be assigned to different VPNs or VLANs. It's not an absolutely secure system, but it strikes me as at least as functional as present systems, and far less intrusive. It would require content providers to self-label where possible, and be subject to third-party labeling where the provider/publisher itself doesn't, won't, or cannot. I've reasons to believe that most would be reasonably willing to participate.

dredmorbius 2y ago

Any DoB > 18 years should more than suffice. The practice suggested of offering a DoB at the earliest date accepted by the system (a practice I've long since adopted ... amongst other things, 100+ y.o. individuals tend to have weak appeal to advertisers) will also suffice. I've also felt that, as with several other online issues, the matter of age-gating is probably best handled at the ISP level. Most people have a fairly strong relationship with their ISP (whether willingly or happily is another matter), and a combination of site-specific self-ratings (which would also fall under consumer-protection/fraud regulation) and an ISP toggle to enable or disable +18 / NSFW / sexual content, or other categories on an account-wide basis would enable a household or business to set such filters with a minimum of hassle. For instances where multi-level tiers of access would be required, the ISP should be able to provide that through two or more virtual service addresses (effectively VPNs which various devices are configured through). And a household or business should be able to define specific exceptions to any filtering rules to avoid the overclassification problem and put ultimate control in the subscriber's hands rather than the ISP's.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
amarant 2y ago
In theory this is a good idea, but in practice I'm not sure I trust my ISP to manage that system. I'm not worried that they'll leak my data, they already do that, but I think they'd probably lock me out of content they shouldn't because of bugs and/or poorly designed system.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  In practice your ISP already has this information and more (all traffic you're currently transacting). The information is less distributed than it would be in the case of providing all and sundry online publishers with that same information, and would offer less effective privacy control over how that information is used. For those who'd bypass their ISP's access limitations/controls using a VPN ... you've now got additional complications and really no less effective control than voluntary age-disclosure rules. Another option would be imputed age classification, which again is something that major sites (e.g., Google, YouTube, FB, Instagram, TikTok) can already perform via algorithmic / AI assessments of marketing categories based off of on-site activities, consumption trends, etc.
  - amarant 2y ago
    I think you may have misunderstood my post, as you appear to be arguing against me while basically repeating my sentiment. Read again and I you will find I say I am NOT worried about data leakage, but only that the ISP will lock me out of content they shouldn't because they're incompetent. YMMV but my ISP would definitely mess that up somehow.
franga2000 2y ago
Ok but households with underage people tend to also contain adults, who might want access to such content... Without incredibly invasive technical measures, proper filtering just isn't possible. And given how trivial it is to bypass basically any filtering even for someone with no tech knowledge, I don't see a reason to even try.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  See my last 'graph. Different devices would be assigned to different VPNs or VLANs. It's not an absolutely secure system, but it strikes me as at least as functional as present systems, and far less intrusive. It would require content providers to self-label where possible, and be subject to third-party labeling where the provider/publisher itself doesn't, won't, or cannot. I've reasons to believe that most would be reasonably willing to participate.