> I’m sure our parents would have all let us sign up for a programming site. This bill still allows for that.
But would the site let you sign up if even with parental permission if it had to do additional identification verification to identify that the permission was from your parent, and was liable for (1) actual damages if you got addicted [0] because of some element of their site design, and (2) huge ($250,000 per feature) penalties if they also didn’t do quarterly audits to identify, and within 30 days after identification eliminate, any feature which might addict you?
How many programming sites see minors in general, much less Utah minors specifically, as that important to their mission to take on the extra costs and risks this bill imposes on serving that population?
[0] Using an intentionally broad definition of addiction
You underestimate how hard it might be to get your parent to sign some weird consent form from a "github" site, especially if it asks for a picture of the parent's ID (to ensure the kid isn't accepting the terms on their own behalf).
Technically it's not spelled out, but chances are Utah law enforcement / regulators won't accept a tech company's measures if a kid can just say another one of their own emails is their parents' and can then consent to the social media access themselves. Everyone affected by this will likely outsource it to a company like Stripe with their Identity product, where you're entrusting Stripe to do the ID verification and to delete the data once it's been verified.
The good part about the COPPA law is that it's an IQ test. If you're under 13, you have to be smart enough to understand that it's a "don't ask don't tell" situation and know to keep quiet. I did when I was 10 and joined Yahoo (the most popular social media site at the time) so I could have a Geocities web site and play fantasy baseball.
I'd suggest that teens in Utah just use a VPN but social media sites have been cracking down on VPN users for years and many of those sites now require phone number verification to sign up. This law illustrates yet another reason why that's a bad idea.
Looking back on my youth, I think these age verification check boxes were my earliest disregard for authority. I understood the checkboxes were there because there was a law that wanted to prevent me from accessing an online service. I thought the law was stupid, and after contemplating it for days decided to ignore it.
