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A comment on Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations. Parent comment

Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by tyleo on Monday December 19, 2022 @10:11AM (#34052952)
Yeah, I don’t know what the big deal is with people in this thread saying, “bah, this is impossible” but I work on a COPPA compliant game and “chat off for kids by default” is absolutely a must.
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Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by dagmx on Monday December 19, 2022 @11:53AM (#34054331)
It’s because a lot of engineers get hung up in the “oh there’s so many ways to defeat this” mindset, and forget that perfect is the enemy of good.

Sensible defaults are a good enough start and many regulations like this are based around best efforts , not absolute perfection.

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Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by BryantD on Monday December 19, 2022 @12:31PM (#34054822)
Yup. It’s both true that the age gate is easy to defeat and that it helps in practice.
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Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by robswc on Monday December 19, 2022 @09:55PM (#34060969)
It seems so pointless though.

I was signing up for all sorts of things when I was a kid. Nothing bad by any stretch of the imagination but I knew when they asked "are you 13" you just click "yes" and you're good to go.

Seems like a "feel good" solution that will collectively waste thousands of hours. I don't see why this is required, quite honestly.

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Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by dagmx on Monday December 19, 2022 @10:02PM (#34061012)
It is somewhat performative but it does save some percentage of children who are honest about it, and at the very least it lets you pass the buck to the user.

Yeah it’s easily defeated but so is wearing seatbelts when you drive.

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Re:Epic Games to pay $520M to resolve FTC allegations by larksimian on Tuesday December 20, 2022 @06:22AM (#34064398)
There's also the fact that the kid who is enough of a dope(/trusting/rule and authority abiding) to not know he can lie on the form is also the most likely to be victimized by adults online.

This is a similar selection effect to misspelled Nigerian prince emails, so I'd say it's a pretty good mechanism actually.

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