Don't even think about lying about your age online, if you're inclined to pose as a teen; popular instant message service ICQ is forcing those under 13 to give up their accounts. That's ICQ's answer to the tough new Child Online Privacy Protection Act which took effect last month.
And the new ICQ policy is causing a little cyberheadache for adults who registered as 13 or younger; they're out until they can prove their own age.
ICQ's move comes barely a week after Microsoft shut pre-teen users out of their Hotmail accounts. And don't look for sympathy from the Federal Trade Commission, either. "They should really just act their age," an FTC representative cracked about the adults-as-kids accounts.
Aimed at keeping children from falling prey to exploitative business practices online, the COPPA stops Websites from gathering up children's personal information without their parents' approval or consent.
And another corollary effect of the law might be, implicitly, helping to freeze online sexual predators or would-be sting operators - as in the Federal agents who posed as "KimLA" in a bid to nab former Infoseek whiz Patrick Naughton for soliciting underage sex last fall.
But as the Hotmail and ICQ cases indicate, one major problem seems to be Web surfers putting in the wrong information - including dates of birth - as a way to protect their anonymity as deeply as they can.
Other Websites are asking for more accurate information or, as in the case of Yahoo!, credit card numbers and ZIP codes - and that makes Junkbusters director Jason Catlett a little queasy.
"It doesn't make sense," he told CNET. "The information being sought is insufficient and excessive - insufficient for the purpose of age verification and excessive because it asks personal questions that have nothing to do with age."
AOL, which now owns ICQ, said they're making all effort to guarantee preteen ICQ users are protected while allowing for those who might have entered wrong birth dates to fix those errors, according to CNET. As for AOL Instant Messenger users, they have nothing to fear like ICQ users: Instant Messenger doesn't collect the information the COPPA covers.
