Back when the CDA was hot news, lots of people were claiming that "asking
for credit card numbers" was a reasonable way to prove that someone was "old
enough" to view certain web sites. Below is a great example---one which
people have been warning about for years---of why this is a horrendous idea,
even if you don't care about the civil liberties implications [see [*]
below] of using a credit card as an age check, or of having an age check at
all:
U.S. CRACKS DOWN ON NET PORN FRAUD
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Crescent
Publishing Group and 64 affiliated companies that operate adult Web sites,
accusing them of charging customers for services advertised as "Free Tour
Web Sites." Like many adult sites, the Crescent sites requested that users
supply credit card information to verify they were of legal age to view
pornographic material. Customers who'd been promised a free online peep
show say they were then billed for recurring monthly membership fees
ranging from $20 to $90. Included among the complainants were some people
who said they'd never visited the sites at all -- in fact, one woman who'd
been charged a recurring fee for several months didn't even own a computer.
To add to the confusion, the charges were made under different company
names. Instead of finding a charge from Highsociety.com on their
statements, consumers would find charges from "Online Forum," or "Hoot
Owl," or "Knock Knee." The FTC has classified the scam as one of the
largest it's ever seen on the Internet, generating $141 [million]
in the first 10 months of 1999 alone. (E-Commerce Times 24 Aug 2000)
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles2000/000824-4.shtml
(The above was from NewsScan; the full story is at the cited URL, including
how the company moved to Guatemala to continue the scam.)
[*] What civil liberties problems? How about:
(a) It discriminates against people who are too poor or have too bad
a credit history to own a card (including those who've gone bankrupt)
(b) It identifies people to sites in a very accurate and intrusive
way, by name, rather than simply making it clear that they are
"old enough". Remember, it's age, not identity, that such sites
are supposed to be caring about.
(c) "Old enough" varies based on where you are, even in the US and
especially in the world, but this system makes no provisions for
that.
(d) How old you have to be to get a credit card varies by country,
and many countries don't have the sort of credit-card presence
that the US does, which might make it impossible to get one at
all.
(e) It assumes that differentiating content by age is a reasonable
idea in the first place.
These are just the most obvious ones off the top of my head. I'm sure
these, and more, were all mentioned prominently at the time. But, of
course, the bad system of credit-card verification took hold anyway, and we
seem to be stuck with it.
[Also, from a purely security standpoint and not a civil-liberties
standpoint, this also assumes that no kid is going to be bright enough to
copy down a parent's CC info while they're not looking. Surely all parents
ensure that all their credit cards are secured 24x7. Of course, they can't
use a -key-, unless that key is also secured and/or on their person 24x7...
Wait---parents don't tend do this?] [Lenny Foner ]
0:00
#
G!
