[jjoonathan]

I don't know enough about COPPA to know who to blame. There are two possibilities:

1. COPPA goes too far

2. Google has done a cost/benefit analysis and decided that it's cheaper to ban children than to lead the charge in teasing out the edge cases

If #2 is the case it's absolutely reasonable to blame google. Of course, deciding who to blame isn't productive, what we really want to do is lobby for change. Now that google is playing the lobbying game they're a reasonable party to appeal to regardless of whether #1 or #2 is closer to the truth.