Fri, September 2, 2011
"Dear Sophie"-inspired parents: You can't actually create a Google account for your kid. I found this to be entirely true, unless you lie about the child's birthday. (Fairly stupid if you ask me; I just hope there won't be weird consequences later when Google thinks he's 50 years older than he really is.)
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Brandon — Sun, 9/4/11 12:56am
Then how did I set Grace up with a Gmail account without lying about her age? Was this rule not in place back in the beta days?
Bee Boy — Sun, 9/4/11 3:06pm
Hard to say. My understanding is that it's a matter of COPPA compliance – Google isn't allowed to create accounts for people under 13 years of age. But some things I've read have implied that there was a time when you could leave "birthday" blank and Google wouldn't bug you.
Anyway, I'm jealous. We'll see if Google will allow us to change the birthday after our kid is born (or after he turns 13). Then again, who's to say there'll even be a Google then?