[toomuchtodo]

Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule ("COPPA")

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-...

EDIT: @gruez: An attestion is likely no longer sufficient for Roblox's compliance requirements, and identity proofing is now cheap to perform (~$1-2/per proofing request). Cheaper to get ahead of the curve.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/21/22684672/roblox-age-verif...

> For now, only one feature requires age verification: Roblox’s new voice chat feature, Spacial Voice. During its initial beta test, it will only be available to players who verify they are at least 13 years old. (Roblox didn’t say whether it would later be available to users regardless of verification status.)

> But the implication seems to be that other features — perhaps specific Roblox games or community tools — could be age-gated as the company works to protect its relatively young user base. More than half of Roblox’s users are still under 13 (Roblox says “nearly 50 percent” were over 13 as of the second quarter of the year).

A business decision was made.

[donmcronald]

> COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.

I didn't read the whole thing. I plan to one day though because I want to see what the rules are, but, to me, that summary sounds like the only reason you need to do it is if you want to collect personal information for children that are 13-17 year old.

Here's a wild idea... How about not collecting the personal information of children?

[nobody9999]

>Here's a wild idea... How about not collecting the personal information of children?

Here's an even wilder one:

   How about not collecting personal information?  
   Full stop.

[smitop]

COPPA has a very broad definition of personal information (see https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-16/part-312). "Online contact information" counts as personal information, and that includes email addresses, IRC nicks, IM usernames, etc. Some other things that count as personal information under COPPA are IP addresses, the user's voice, and full names. Virtually all online services with user accounts collect personal information as defined by COPPA.

[nobody9999]

>Virtually all online services with user accounts collect personal information as defined by COPPA.

And that makes it right to do so? I think not.

Sure, it's necessary to store stuff like login credentials, if a login is required to access the site.

As such, it shouldn't matter how old (or young) you are, unless there's a specific need to store such information (and there rarely is) to support the use of whatever services are provided by a website, it's invasive and untrustworthy to do so.

And I respond accordingly.

Feel free to disagree, but that's not a discussion which will end in me changing my position.

[gruez]

That piece of legislation was from 21 years ago. What changed? In the past a "I'm 13" checkbox would have sufficed.

[scohesc]

I'm sure it's more of a "cover your ass" scenario where in the future, if someone gets past the ID verification system and uses an account to commit a crime on their platform, Roblox can just say "the ID company verified it!"

[zerkten]

I don't think anything has changed, but COPPA isn't the only regulation with age requirements. GDPR also includes age requirement (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-8-gdpr/).

From a quick read of the article, I think this is intentionally going beyond the requirements. They obviously feel that this will build a safer and more trustworthy environment at the expense of other issues, including a loss of users who don't want to provide identity.

[droopyEyelids]

There are truly unsavory elements that will intrude on a virtual environment for children. Roblox corp knows exactly what they're dealing with due to their existing support requests- and they can imagine the implications of adding a spacial voice feature into that mix.

I trust they're not going overboard here.