Well, I went on another ban-spree, handing out perma-bans to several users for being underage. I've done an awful lot of these over the past 6 months, and I wanted to write up a quick note about it here to explain why we have to ban under-age users.
The United States has a federal law that we must follow as an Internet business, that states we are not allowed to store any information about users under the age of 13 without parental consent.
Due to the sheer number of users we have on the site, trying to get parental consent from so many users would be an overwhelming task, so we opted for the easier route of saying that users under the age of 13 are not permitted to register an account on the site.
And because we don't want to dabble in international law either, we apply this rule to users from ALL countries, not just the United States.
If we find that you are underage, we are FORCED, by law, to disable your account right away. We can only re-enable your account if you send us valid proof of your birthdate with a note and signature from a parent or guardian.
If you want to use the Contact page to find out how you can send us this information, Justin can forward some information.
So here's the deal: if you admit to being underage, we can 'ause' your account until you turn 13. It will look and feel like a perma-ban because it uses the same controls, and your friends on the site will not have access to your profile any longer. However, once you send us proof of your 13th birthday, we can re-enable (un-ban) your account, and you can pick up where you left off.
However, if we disable your account, and you create an additional account to circumvent the ban, we will mark your old account to never be re-enabled/un-banned.
If your account has been shut off, and you have a question about why, you can contact us through the Contact page. Justin or I will get back to you as soon as we can to explain why.
Users are welcome to submit comments here about it, but our decision on restricting the minimum age to 13 will not change.
how are you to know that? y'know people lie about things when they are registering.
If they admit to being underaged, then their account(s) will be disabled. Or if they have the age displayed on their profile and an administrator or moderator sees it, then their account(s) will be disabled.
That is some forums users don't like under-age users: because of bad interpunction, forgetting capitals and bad/awkward construction of sentences.
Wrong. Not everyone is a purist.
I don't quite understand this as a reason to ban children. I have seen many posts throughout the website from people where it is either 1-Mispelled 2-Hard to understand/Poor sentence construction 3-Punctuation errors So does that mean dumb/lazy adults would be banned too?
That's not the reason why they ban underaged users. The reason why they ban underaged users is because it's the law.
Future replies talking about typing/grammar/spelling skills of underage users will be removed from the thread. This is not the place to discuss those ideas.
You should just ask parental permission over email
The law requires more than just a parental Email. The law states that we can't store any personally identifiable information about underage users, including (but not limited to) an Email address and password. So guess what? Now you have no way to log into the site...
Guys, honestly, this isn't up for debate. No comments here are going to sway us to change our minds. It's a federal law we have to follow. Period. End of story.
But this doesn't mean that if you create a account on AG you must send always a birth sertification? Cause that will keep a lot of people creating an account.
do we do it to keep kids under 13 from social gaming sites?
Please do read the opening post in a thread before replying to it. It often answers those questions about motive. However, this is done to follow the law. Kids under 13 are welcome to come and play the games, but because the law makes it illegal for AG to hold any information on these children, it is impossible for them to have an account here, unless AG wants to be sued, fined and generally punished for breaking the law.
Well it's really only so AG doesn't contain personal information about said "kids under 13". They are free to play games, browse the pages, and whatnot, just without an account to hold information. That's what is not acceptable to do.
if the 13 year olds are mature enough then no they shouldent be banned, but if they cant act mature and respect other people then yes they should be banned
The law prevents them from keeping an account on Armor Games if they are found being under the age of thirteen. And anyway, if you read the terms and conditions before creating an account, it states that if you are under the age of thirteen, then you shouldn't create an account on Armor Games. What you just said is like saying a person under the drinking age should be allowed to drink alcohol if he can handle it. If you are caught doing that, then you get in trouble because it's the law. Same thing goes for underaged users on a site that doesn't allow underaged users. If you are caught, then you get in trouble - meaning your account will be permanently removed.
Isn't this law age discrimination. i mean you ban kids for having an account just because there to young. the law is mean. the only reason it is a law because people over 13 make it. grown ups make these laws just because they are older. that is kinda stupid because the kids don't have a say. some democracy this is. that is just my opinion.
