As someone who operated on the "adult internet" with payment processors and related infrastructure without being 18, I still carry forward the constant fear that I'll be banned for retroactive Terms of Service violations incurred when I was a kid. It really sucks when it's services like AdSense because you're just screwed forever.
I really really wish the internet was more supportive of "early hackers" who want to experiment. I get that there are tons of implications around contract law and child labor here, but there really needs to be an escape hatch if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done. Ostensibly, this is a young creator getting discouraged from their hobby, even though they've shown that they're good enough at it to deserve some form of compensation. This'll leave a bad taste in the kid's mouth for a long time.
> As someone who operated on the "adult internet" with payment processors and related infrastructure without being 18, I still carry forward the constant fear that I'll be banned for retroactive Terms of Service violations incurred when I was a kid. It really sucks when it's services like AdSense because you're just screwed forever.
The thing is, most parents wouldn't even think "Oh, you'll need to do that in my name." when their kid says they want to build some website and put ads on it. They just think "Oh that's cute, we'll figure out the money stuff later."
The idea that they don't have a timeout feature rather than a "banned for life" antifeature explains all you need to know about these megacorps that are mostly the only game in town for what they do. This is why Congress (and other equivalents) need to kick them in the balls every so often to let them know who is actually in charge.
I'm in the opposite boat: I told paypal I was under 18 when I was under 18, called them, they kept my account locked, but as soon as I turned 18 I was unblocked and could used my original account. And I made the account when I was 11.
The old apocryphal tale comes to mind of the CD clubs.
-Everyone knew a person back in the day who signed up for the CD clubs promising dollar CD's, or 10 for a dollar. Whatever the various deals were.
-With those deals came a commitment to buy 10 - 20 more albums at full price.
-You sign a contract agreeing to this.
-So the friend-of-a-friend signed it while under 18 and a minor.
-They then tell the CD club that the agreement is null and void on account of them not being legally able to sign a contract, and after getting their 10 CD's for a dollar or whatever, to cancel their account.
I get that there are tons of implications around contract law and child labor here, but there really needs to be an escape hatch if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done.
While it's happening, it can be done using the parent's identity. After that, the same logic that prevents a minor to commit, because limited responsability, should be applied to avoid perpetual consequences.
But as usual, companies apply draconian measures that governments can't. Some day we'll finally get that regulation that draws a line between utilities and publishers...
> if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done
My mom definitely wouldn’t be able to provide informed consent to half the stuff I was doing on the internet in high school and middle school even if I told her about it.
She worried, I’m sure, but between speaking next to zero english and the novelty of www in the early 00’s, best she could do was threaten to take the computer if things got too weird.
I remember registering with an non-adult affiliate marketing company as a kid. I'm pretty sure they knew I was young and they just didn't care. Either they used that as an excuse to rip me off or none of my leads ever converted lol
I received a lifelong ban on using Google Ad products when I was 16 after experimenting with clicking my own ads (and asking my high school friends to click on them). I remember the account accumulated almost $80 before Google detected the suspicious activity and banned me.
Given that this was 16 years ago, it would be nice to get second chance..
This is also a case for online play on xbox and playstation. You have kids trying to shittalk.. and trying to be edgy. (They have very little life experience to understand why their words are wrong or hurtful). However, some of these bans completely wipe out their entire console.
It's pretty shitty to do a life time ban on their accounts for minor things like that.
Same. I wasn't clicking my own ads but I was 16ish and had some sort of text along the lines "Please click an ad to support this website."
20 years later, I'm still banned (well, last I checked was probably 5 years ago). Funnily enough, my day job has me interacting with AdWords pretty regularly.
Also, FWIW you can probably sign up with an EIN, just not a personal account with your SSN.
I've been banned-for-life from a handful of services after I lied about my age as a kid.
I can see both (all?) sides of this:
- As a society we ought to be forgiving of harmless youthful indiscretions
- As a business you shouldn't have to give second chances to people who blatantly defraud you
- There is a big can of worms when it comes to doing business with minors on the internet. I don't think there's a solution as easy as "well when they're 18, let them log into their account and update their age to acknowledge that they were using the service as a minor" or "just let people open multiple accounts (with wildly different ages) under their name."
> As a business you shouldn't have to give second chances to people who blatantly defraud you
Says who? Society can easily make it so they have to. Besides, "fraud" is a bit too strong a word for a kid that simply didn't care about some company's idiotic "you have to be 13 to post here" message on the sign up screen.
I tried advertising a startup website I had, setup the payments wrong on adsense. Something with an old invalid card being linked or something, and google banned me for life through an automated system. The system thinks I tried to commit some sort of payments fraud.
If the 13-year old had killed someone, they could be prosecuted as a minor and they would go to juvie and their record would be sealed after they turn 21 and they could get on with their life.
But stealing a trivial amount of money from a corporation, well that's certainly deserving of an Internet Death Penalty.
Was he told this? The submission appears to be a user comment from some anonymous guy named "busterjet", describing what would happen in a hypothetical scenario. There's no indication that such a scenario has actually happened or that busterjet represents Google.
Is it uncharitable to say that Google has intentionally stolen millions of dollars from kids?
They seem to have engineered a set of rules where they work around having to ever pay a bunch of people for content that was produced and had ads displayed on it.
Maybe the kids can't legally sign a contract, but Google still made money from them. Has Google forfeited this money or are they profiting off of child labor?
My friend ran into this recently, he signed up to Paypal in like 2003, probably to sell games or something on eBay for a bit of cash.
He's in his mid thirties now, and Paypal banned his account without warning, when he phoned them up they said it was because he was under 18 when he signed up.....19 years ago.
I know this is going to be hard to prove, but I was banned forever because they detected "click fraud" which did not come from me. It was likely initiated by a competitor.
Now I still use adsense, but now it is through a 3rd party which takes a hefty cut of the profits.
If adsense is your sole income, you should probably diversify. Anyone can get you permanently banned unless you are a well known youtuber.
Around 2003 I purchased a CPU from eBay with PayPal. It never shipped because it was a scam. My credit card company refunded my money, but PayPal demanded I pay them. I refused and they banned my account.
It took almost a decade before a class-action lawsuit forced amnesty at PayPal. I use it now because it is convenient to have everything go through one service that I can control. But if they did this again I wouldn't use them again.
Hopefully a class-action lawsuit can still work against a giant like Google. If the US would get its head out of its arse and pass legislation like GDRP, we might actually have a chance at the right to be forgotten.
Worth noting that this is the statement of a "product expert" which is just some random person not an employee of the company our the actual policy. This might be true but this isn't a reliable source.
> Your son's account is now in limbo - it can't be verified, closed or paid out. It can only be abandoned but it will still technically be active as AdSense think he is over 18 - he declared that to be the case.
Of course it can't be verified now, but what would prevent the son from completing the verification in a few years when he is actually 18?
If you're under 18, then you cannot legally consent to the TOS, therefore you can't be in violation of them. They can kick you off of then of course, but banning you later on as an adult I wouldn't think would be justified because, as above, you can't violate TOS that you can't consent to when under 18.
PayPal locked my account after receiving 800 €, asked for my ID, got it, unlocked my account (gave me about 3 hours to withdraw) and then banned me permanently for having created the account before 18.
At this point, I consider most American companies as an active threat to me, especially if I used them before 18.
I tried starting a blog as a kid, I tried monetizing it using Adsense, my application never got accepted, but somehow my account ended up active for 5 minutes before my application got rejected again. I abandoned the blog, and on visiting it after two years, I found out it's showing ads with an adsense account that shouldn't be showing ads, and then I was banned. I would never know if it was because I was still a minor or because Google bots didn't do a very good job.
Google does allow you to change the birthdate for your Google account. They could try letting the account sit in limbo unverified until the kid is 18, change the birthdate and then verify the account.
I remember at 21 getting an email from Paypal that the account I'd used my entire online life was banned because I started it when I was 12. They noticed this after I reached out to support...
Switched email addresses and used that instead. Although I've not used PayPal in a good while because it just randomly rejected transactions for no clear reason.
Ah, Google. It baffles me that some companies even consider using GCP - it is still the same company that kills products and has abysmal customer support. AWS and Azure feel like a safer bet to me. I wonder if Google will ever get their act together, or will they go the IBM way?
[+] [-] Shank|3 years ago|reply
I really really wish the internet was more supportive of "early hackers" who want to experiment. I get that there are tons of implications around contract law and child labor here, but there really needs to be an escape hatch if a parent agrees to whatever activity is being done. Ostensibly, this is a young creator getting discouraged from their hobby, even though they've shown that they're good enough at it to deserve some form of compensation. This'll leave a bad taste in the kid's mouth for a long time.
[+] [-] that_guy_iain|3 years ago|reply
The thing is, most parents wouldn't even think "Oh, you'll need to do that in my name." when their kid says they want to build some website and put ads on it. They just think "Oh that's cute, we'll figure out the money stuff later."
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] judge2020|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaperducer|3 years ago|reply
Suddenly: "Hey, Google! I'm three years old, better ban me!"
[+] [-] nalllar|3 years ago|reply
Fun times!
[+] [-] RajT88|3 years ago|reply
-Everyone knew a person back in the day who signed up for the CD clubs promising dollar CD's, or 10 for a dollar. Whatever the various deals were. -With those deals came a commitment to buy 10 - 20 more albums at full price. -You sign a contract agreeing to this. -So the friend-of-a-friend signed it while under 18 and a minor. -They then tell the CD club that the agreement is null and void on account of them not being legally able to sign a contract, and after getting their 10 CD's for a dollar or whatever, to cancel their account.
[+] [-] narag|3 years ago|reply
While it's happening, it can be done using the parent's identity. After that, the same logic that prevents a minor to commit, because limited responsability, should be applied to avoid perpetual consequences.
But as usual, companies apply draconian measures that governments can't. Some day we'll finally get that regulation that draws a line between utilities and publishers...
[+] [-] Swizec|3 years ago|reply
My mom definitely wouldn’t be able to provide informed consent to half the stuff I was doing on the internet in high school and middle school even if I told her about it.
She worried, I’m sure, but between speaking next to zero english and the novelty of www in the early 00’s, best she could do was threaten to take the computer if things got too weird.
[+] [-] ars|3 years ago|reply
Companies don't have a choice here: Someone under 18 can not enter into a contract, there's nothing really they can do.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] f1shy|3 years ago|reply
Specially, if you the intend is to "protect" children, this is not helpful.
[+] [-] MattGaiser|3 years ago|reply
Wouldn’t this be the parents signing up for the account?
[+] [-] jollyllama|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pazimzadeh|3 years ago|reply
Given that this was 16 years ago, it would be nice to get second chance..
[+] [-] monksy|3 years ago|reply
It's pretty shitty to do a life time ban on their accounts for minor things like that.
[+] [-] lupire|3 years ago|reply
If you weren't 18, how did they know who you were?
[+] [-] sjs382|3 years ago|reply
20 years later, I'm still banned (well, last I checked was probably 5 years ago). Funnily enough, my day job has me interacting with AdWords pretty regularly.
Also, FWIW you can probably sign up with an EIN, just not a personal account with your SSN.
[+] [-] no_butterscotch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffbee|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cavisne|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kweingar|3 years ago|reply
I can see both (all?) sides of this:
- As a society we ought to be forgiving of harmless youthful indiscretions
- As a business you shouldn't have to give second chances to people who blatantly defraud you
- There is a big can of worms when it comes to doing business with minors on the internet. I don't think there's a solution as easy as "well when they're 18, let them log into their account and update their age to acknowledge that they were using the service as a minor" or "just let people open multiple accounts (with wildly different ages) under their name."
[+] [-] notimetorelax|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcosdumay|3 years ago|reply
Just to point the obvious, but corporations do not have any inherent right, and this specific one is already denied on some circumstances.
[+] [-] matheusmoreira|3 years ago|reply
Says who? Society can easily make it so they have to. Besides, "fraud" is a bit too strong a word for a kid that simply didn't care about some company's idiotic "you have to be 13 to post here" message on the sign up screen.
[+] [-] romwell|3 years ago|reply
Google keeping "limbo" accounts is dystopian, and seems like a GDPR violation to me.
[+] [-] fdgsdfogijq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] code51|3 years ago|reply
This is what you get when you have no humans in the loop.
[+] [-] evilotto|3 years ago|reply
But stealing a trivial amount of money from a corporation, well that's certainly deserving of an Internet Death Penalty.
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcai|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicalmonster|3 years ago|reply
They seem to have engineered a set of rules where they work around having to ever pay a bunch of people for content that was produced and had ads displayed on it.
Maybe the kids can't legally sign a contract, but Google still made money from them. Has Google forfeited this money or are they profiting off of child labor?
[+] [-] njsubedi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djhworld|3 years ago|reply
He's in his mid thirties now, and Paypal banned his account without warning, when he phoned them up they said it was because he was under 18 when he signed up.....19 years ago.
[+] [-] f1shy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andromeduck|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codexon|3 years ago|reply
Now I still use adsense, but now it is through a 3rd party which takes a hefty cut of the profits.
If adsense is your sole income, you should probably diversify. Anyone can get you permanently banned unless you are a well known youtuber.
[+] [-] sbf501|3 years ago|reply
Around 2003 I purchased a CPU from eBay with PayPal. It never shipped because it was a scam. My credit card company refunded my money, but PayPal demanded I pay them. I refused and they banned my account.
It took almost a decade before a class-action lawsuit forced amnesty at PayPal. I use it now because it is convenient to have everything go through one service that I can control. But if they did this again I wouldn't use them again.
Hopefully a class-action lawsuit can still work against a giant like Google. If the US would get its head out of its arse and pass legislation like GDRP, we might actually have a chance at the right to be forgotten.
[+] [-] chickenpotpie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdawson|3 years ago|reply
If you need to be at least 18 to use a particular service, and they're going to verify at some point, that point should be at the very start.
[+] [-] xg15|3 years ago|reply
Of course it can't be verified now, but what would prevent the son from completing the verification in a few years when he is actually 18?
[+] [-] Eddy_Viscosity2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] system2|3 years ago|reply
Cowards.
[+] [-] ohgodplsno|3 years ago|reply
At this point, I consider most American companies as an active threat to me, especially if I used them before 18.
[+] [-] tbbfjotllf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tssva|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudgefactorfive|3 years ago|reply
Switched email addresses and used that instead. Although I've not used PayPal in a good while because it just randomly rejected transactions for no clear reason.
[+] [-] bornfreddy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beached_whale|3 years ago|reply