[McP]

I agree with you but also: I gave my young daughter her own Android phone last week. Google Family Link is fantastic. It prevents her from using a web browser or any other things I don't want her to do. All she can do is message people, call people & look at maps. It turns itself the phone off an hour before bedtime. She can get headlines from Google search, which I didn't expect, but it's not proven a problem since the links can't be opened. The usage tracker shows she spent almost an hour messaging/calling yesterday, which is more than I expected, but if it gets too much then I can limit it. One happy customer here.

[n2dasun]

When your kid turns 13 (or maybe it was 14), Google decides they're an adult now and takes the reins away from you. We just went through this with our teen

[Vendan]

Google asks your kid, and they can pick either way. You can tell them "Hey, this is a device I bought for you, using a cell phone service I pay for, so either reenroll in supervision or I'm taking my device back". A little harsh, but... then you still get roughly the same level of control as before.

[n2dasun]

Looks like you're right. I don't remember it occurring this way in late 2021, so I wonder if the implementation changed at all since then, but it could also be poor attention to detail on my part

[dotandgtfo]

Could you point me in a direction that I can research for this? It seems interesting.

I don't trust social media companies to self-regulate this kind of stuff at all.

[n2dasun]

Looks like the other replies here are correct. It's law-driven and can be worked around.

https://support.google.com/families/answer/7106787?hl=en

This one's an anecdote I found when searching just now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/z4r77a/google_fami...

https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/COPPA-Childr...

[dragonwriter]

> When your kid turns 13 (or maybe it was 14), Google decides they're an adult now and takes the reins away from you.

Google stops locking in to behavior that is a direct response to age-related government regulations and defaults to the choice of the registered user at exactly the age the regulatiom ceases to apply?

Weird.

[n2dasun]

Didn't know about COPPA's role in this. Thanks for pointing that out

[mixmastamyk]

Nice features, with a helping of ad company surveillance on the side.