Given that, maybe Google should force users under the age of 13 to fill out an online form that has the parent's consent on it. Although, this might not stop some to forge information on it, at least, Google can remain in compliance under the law this way.

Or so I think.

The law states that a site may collect information with the consent of the child's parents. That is fairly innocuous. The problem is that Google scuttles the account and thus the Chromebook.

The law goes a lot further than that, the law prevents Google from marketing to children, so it would have to disable ALL of its marketing and tracking programs for children's accounts. It is reasonable for Google to scuttle the account instead, these services are not intended for children.

Unless Google is trying to build a business that these children will come to rely on once they get older.

At Google's scale, I think it definitely makes sense to put the extra engineering effort in to comply with the law while the kid is too young.

On the other hand, I'd probably sign up as a 5 year old if it meant Google would collect less information from me and show fewer ads. Paid account?

Indeed. This problem is caused by the U.S. Government, not Google.

So more accurately: A US Federal Law Made My Daughter Cry

That's not correct. More likely, they were too lazy to be COPA compliant.

COPPA compliance includes no marketing to children, even with parental consent. So they'd have to operate a completely different platform for children. Plus their business model is based on marketing, so they'd take a huge loss operating a second platform for kids. It is stupid to expect Google to accommodate children.

It's not really a second platform, is it? It's more like adding a single configuration bit to an account that determines whether it is eligible for marketing campaigns (or whatever else it is they can't do with children).

It's even likely that they already have such a thing in place for debugging purposes.

I'm intrigued by this system you suggest that manages to get an entire engine for obtaining 'verifiable parental consent' squished into a single configuration bit, along with an engine to directly notify parents, to allow parents to view all the collected data, and provide deletion from backups. That's one busy bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pro...

Which part of the law do you think requires Google to do this?

(Hint: the answer is there is no such part.)

The part that makes it onerous for Google to do it. Laws don't have to explicitly forbid activity to shape it.