Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-100.14.50.30-20200409221158/@comment-9605025-20200412063850

Disclaimer: This is not legal advice or commentary. The information provided in this post is intended for educational purposes only. Any individual or entity wishing to know about the laws mentioned in this post for the purposes of making a decision that may incur a legal consequence should consult with a lawer or other qualified professional.

"Age of consent" usually means something other than the age at which websites are allowed to collect data on a user.

In 1998 (effective 2000), the United States passed a law known as COPPA. This law requires all websites operating within the US to not collect information on users in the US who are under the age of 13 (with some exceptions). Additionally, websites owned by entities based in the US must apply this restriction to all users even if the user is not in the US. This is where the 13 y/o requirement comes from.

In 2016 (effective 2018), the European Union passed a law known as GDPR. In addition to other protections, this put in place a requirement similar to that of COPPA but for the European Economic Area. Under this law, the default age is 16 unless a particular member country explicitly changes it for their own country. In the event that a particular member changes this age, it may be set no lower than 13. For the duration of this post, when I say "GDPR", I mean this specific portion of GDPR.

In 2018 (effective 2020), California passed a state law known as CCPA. CCPA is a bit different from COPPA and GDPR. COPPA and GDPR apply restrictions to the collection of data while CCPA applies restrictions to the use of collected data. In addition, as far as I am aware, CCPA does not have the "all users if you are located here" aspect that COPPA and GDPR do. According to CCPA, websites must require users under the age of 16 to opt-in rather than opt-out of having their data sold to other entities.

The end result of these 3 laws is as follows. In order to use Fandom's services (even anonymously without a registered account), a user must be at least 16 y/o if they are in California or the EEA (except for the United Kindom). If the 16 y/o requirement does not apply, then the user must be at least 13 y/o.