Many projects are doing the “not for use in California” thing. I’d set the birthday to yesterday - it is the safest. This is only useful as a do-not-track, and kids get the best protection there. For anything else - kids are well able to change their birthday on the computer, so if you want to protect kids from harmful content (whatever that is - no two people agree if you dig deep enough) you need something that is stronger than a claimed age.
As a kid, me and a friend bought the game “Leisure Suit Larry” or one of the sequels. It included an age check because of adult content. After asking our age, which we dutifully entered as 19, it would ask questions that only an adult would know, like “who was the US president in 1962?” We would research these questions in my friend’s encyclopedia to play the game.
Now, I have all this trivia knowledge in my head due to my childhood quest to see highly pixelated cartoon boobies in 640x480 resolution.
which we dutifully entered as 19, it would ask questions that only an adult would know, like “who was the US president in 1962?”
To think there was a time when Amerikkkan adults actually knew some History, that the developers could trust to use as an age check! Quite the surprise, I imagine in part it was thanks to Carmen Sandiego.
Just put a “not for use in the state of California” disclaimer somewhere. Then automatically set every user’s birthday to January 1st, 1970.
Many projects are doing the “not for use in California” thing. I’d set the birthday to yesterday - it is the safest. This is only useful as a do-not-track, and kids get the best protection there. For anything else - kids are well able to change their birthday on the computer, so if you want to protect kids from harmful content (whatever that is - no two people agree if you dig deep enough) you need something that is stronger than a claimed age.
As a kid, me and a friend bought the game “Leisure Suit Larry” or one of the sequels. It included an age check because of adult content. After asking our age, which we dutifully entered as 19, it would ask questions that only an adult would know, like “who was the US president in 1962?” We would research these questions in my friend’s encyclopedia to play the game.
Now, I have all this trivia knowledge in my head due to my childhood quest to see highly pixelated cartoon boobies in 640x480 resolution.
To think there was a time when Amerikkkan adults actually knew some History, that the developers could trust to use as an age check! Quite the surprise, I imagine in part it was thanks to Carmen Sandiego.
Everyone wins!