User blog comment:M1870/13 and Up???/@comment-20644-20120522203228

Hi. It’s time to move away from discussion about how old people are. This is an inappropriate conversation to be having. We do not ask anyone to publicly divulge information about themselves, and in that same spirit we do ask that you do not hold discussions about it. It’s a privacy issue and we would advise not revealing that sort of information, and, therefore, not having conversations like this about it either.

I understand you have concerns about users who are under 13 being banned. However, that provision has always been in our Terms of Use. The users who have had their accounts disabled were required to comply with that, and the fact that they registered and used an account means that they lied about their age upon signing up for Wikia.

This clause in our Terms of Use is in line with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which is a United States federal law that’s been in effect since 2000. This law dictates that we cannot collect private information from individuals under the age of 13. Because we collect information like e-mail addresses (and even a username could be considered private information), we have to follow that requirement. Wikia is an American company based in the state of California, so all relevant state and federal laws apply to Wikia and the use of our service. That includes COPPA.

The only way we could allow individuals under the age of 13 to join would be to do something like asking their parents to send us a copy of their driver’s license or a credit card number, for every single account that an underage individual wants to make. You can imagine what a nightmare that would be to support and maintain, so we do not offer that as an option. That’s why Wikia and other sites, like Facebook, have a minimum age requirement.

I hope that clarification helps. I'm going to close this discussion now, so let's please move on from this topic. Thanks.