Not such a bad idea
Not such a bad idea
Posted Mar 13, 2026 9:35 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)In reply to: Not such a bad idea by kleptog
Parent article: California's Digital Age Assurance Act and Linux distributions
The bit that's missing to convince me that it's just poorly drafted, and not intent, is protections for apps or sites that obey the law.
As written, it says that the developer can be penalised for not respecting this signal, but not that the developer is protected from consequences if they rely on this signal, but it's wrong. Indeed, it goes in the opposite direction - if the developer ought to know that the signal is wrong, they can be in trouble for relying on the signal over outside knowledge.
This is the worst possible outcome, IMO. It means that support for the signal is all stick, no carrot - not least because if you happen to know the signal is wrong, you can be penalised because you refused to let an adult access your service on the basis that the signal said they were under 13, and penalised because you let a child access your service on the basis that the signal said they were over 18.