Google Makes Young Girl Cry by Shutting Down Her Account

Rich Warren, a software engineer from Houston, Texas, never imagined his daughter would be brought to tears by Google. Sadly, that’s exactly what Warren claims happened — via a post on Google+ — when Google shut down his daughter’s account Sunday morning, because according to the company’s policy she is too young.
Google’s decision raises an important discussion about how young is too young for using the Internet, particularly in this increasingly digital age.

Just a description

Warren started a Google account for her daughter so she could stay in touch with her grandparents and friends. Haruko, Warren’s daughter, also started a Blogger account as part of a class project. She’s now lost access to those blog posts, homework saved on her Google account and the contact information of far-away friends.
Under Google’s Terms of Service, you can’t use Google’s services if you’re not “of legal age to form a binding contract with Google,” or if you’re prevented from using Google’s services by the law of the country in which you live. In the U.S., Google must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), under which children younger than 13 must provide the permission of a parent or guardian before giving out personal information online. Google doesn’t collect permissions for its services, and many other U.S.-based companies take this route to avoid dealing with COPPA.
Because Haruko was younger than 13 when her account was created, Google decided to shut down her account without warning. And then came the tears. Google’s Terms of Service clearly state their age requirement, but Warren argues Google had many ways to deal with his daughter’s account other than deletion.
What does Warren want?
“An apology would always be nice,” he wrote. “I’d like to know what my options are. Can I download her contacts and e-mails? Quite a few other people have had similar problems. Is Google doing anything to solve [the problem]?”
When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson said, “We have actually been asking for users’ birth dates on several services for years. Asking for age information helps us provide features like age-appropriate settings to our users, who are interacting more every day with the people they know. Under our policies, Google doesn’t allow users who are under the age of 13 to have Google Accounts, unless they are using Google Apps for Education accounts through their school. This is similar to a lot of online services, as it’s very complicated for many providers to offer better solutions for children that meet the relevant regulations. It’s not as simple as just asking a parent for consent to let their child have an account — there are associated implications for data and privacy involved. We know that this data is important to people, and we want to help by finding the right solutions. We’re also working on designing special safety settings for teens.”
Should Google have warned Warren and Haruko before locking out her account? How young is too young for email and blogging? Answer our poll and discuss in the comments below.

the information above is from http://mashable.com/2011/12/12/google-shuts-down-youth-account/.
This makes me think about my country in many fields such as game, cigarette, beer, alcohol,.. etc, and Internet also. Children can buy, and use all of them without any paper, we should change this point. DO FOR FUTURE GENERATION OR YOURSELF.

Posted in: Experimental Society