No, no. Don’t give websites a way to check the user’s age.
Age restrictions are different across countries and cultures. Parents disagree on age ratings given by boards all the time.
Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls.
If you’re a parent that pays attention to age ratings, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The age is meaningless. It’s the type of content next to the rating that’s important.
Your only option as a parent now to let your 14 year old play a violent game rated M that you specifically allowed is to give them a fully unrestricted device. They can now use that device to access gore, porn and gambling as well. How does this make any sense?
Right, recycling a comment on the benefits of "website reports, the device parents bought blocks":
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1. Most of the dollar costs of making it all happen will be paid by the people who actually need/use the feature.
2. No toxic Orwellian panopticon.
3. Key enforcement falls into a realm non-technical parents can actually observe and act upon: What device is little Timmy holding?
4. Every site in the world will not need a monthly update to handle Elbonia's rite of manhood on the 17th lunar year to make it permitted to see bare ankles. Instead, parents of that region/religion can download their own damn plugin.
> Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls.
That would have been nice. The RSAC (Recreational Software Advisory Council) had a slightly more granular rating system that rated violence, sex, and language on a scale from 0 to 4 which unfortunately it lost out to the ESRB/IARC age-based classifications, and the internet appears to be going towards age-based classifications as well. Personally I like Common Sense Media's ratings which extend the standard violence, sex, and language flags by adding scales for "Products & Purchases" and "Drinking, Drugs, & Smoking".
From a semantic web standpoint it would have been useful if the web had codified these sorts of content flags so content producers could apply them to apps, websites, page sections, images, or even individual HTML tags. Then a device administrator could tell the operating system or browser to restrict certain content, either based on age-appropriate presets or based on custom levels for each type of content.
Age restrictions are different across countries and cultures. Parents disagree on age ratings given by boards all the time.
Have apps and websites declare the objectionable content they have, and let the device decide if it will show it or not according to parental controls.
If you’re a parent that pays attention to age ratings, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The age is meaningless. It’s the type of content next to the rating that’s important.
Your only option as a parent now to let your 14 year old play a violent game rated M that you specifically allowed is to give them a fully unrestricted device. They can now use that device to access gore, porn and gambling as well. How does this make any sense?