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TechnologyDaily Mobile
The Politics Of Online Age Verification
by Michael Martinez
Age-verification technologies have the potential to dramatically affect how people do business and interact socially online.
Some lawmakers and law enforcers are pushing such applications as tools to protect children on popular social-networking sites like MySpace. Others are curious as to whether age verification can be used as part of a regulatory regime if Congress rescinds restrictions on Internet gambling.
But the dispute is being shaped by disagreement over how well the technologies work, and it has ensnared companies with considerable influence inside the Beltway and beyond.
Old Enough To Gamble
Last month, the House Financial Services Committee examined the feasibility of enforcing a proposal to let financial companies process payments to online gambling sites.
The debate focused on conflicting testimony about whether age-verification technologies could be used to effectively regulate the e-gambling industry. Michael Colopy, the senior vice president at Aristotle International, deflected recent criticism about the effectiveness of such services that companies like his provide.
Many lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in the states already are familiar with Aristotle, which made a name for itself providing technology services and voter information to political campaigns. The company boasts on its Web site that it has "served every occupant of the White House since 1980." Aristotle also provides age-verification services to more than 300 financial firms and other high-profile clients.
Colopy told the committee that the marketplace has embraced age-verification applications because companies have realized their potential benefits. "The data tells the story in the marketplace every day in the tens of millions, where a lot is at risk," Colopy said.
His remarks clashed with those made by Jeff Schmidt, the CEO of the identity-verification firm Authis. Schmidt said research has proven that such applications fail at rates as high as 20 percent. "These technologies are not reliable in their current form," he said.
But Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., said the adequacy of age-verification tools may not be all that significant in the debate over legalized e-gambling. He said most people who oppose the practice have focused their concerns on young adults and college students. "Whether age-verification is good or not good isn't going to resolve the problem of people [gambling online] who are 18 or beyond," he said.
The Big Beer Bust?
The debate over online age verification also extends to another underage vice: drinking. Almost half the attorneys general in the country wrote to the brewer Anheuser-Busch earlier this year about the tools it had employed to keep underage Internet users off one of its new sites.
The company launched the Bud.tv site after the Super Bowl as part of a new advertising blitz. The multimillion-dollar portal features a combination of originally produced and user-generated videos that are available behind an age-verification wall provided by Aristotle. The site is only supposed to be viewable to users old enough to consume alcohol.
In their letter, the attorneys general urged Anheuser-Busch to begin using a stronger age-verification tool. The letter was signed by Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, both of whom have been strong advocates for age-verification technologies in the social-networking arena.
The law enforcers said they do not see Anheuser-Busch's system as a "genuine attempt" to keep underage Internet users from accessing the site. In its response, Anheuser-Busch voiced concerns about driving adult users away from the site by implementing too strict a system. The firm told AP it also was worried about the potential invasiveness of Internet filtering systems.
Tim Lordan, executive director of the Internet Education Foundation, said concerns about privacy are central to the online safety debate. He said companies that implement age-verification systems and other tools to screen their sites need to take extra precautions to protect the data they collect.
"There are legitimate concerns about building databases of information on people who companies are trying to protect online because that information can be abused," he said.
In a telephone interview, Colopy said the alleged weaknesses in the initial Bud.tv system had little to do with the technology being used. "There are many variables that are within the capacity with these tools to manage traffic," he said. "It's the site manager that determines how they are configured and how they are deployed."
Too Social For State Comfort
The social-networking arena arguably has generated the most debate about age verification, and that appears likely to continue.
Blumenthal publicly expressed his frustration this spring when Connecticut lawmakers cleared a bill to require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, screen names and other online information with the state. The proposal was a good step forward, he said, but it fell short of his goal of requiring social-networking sites to verify the ages of their users.
He called for age-verification legislation again last week, after a state judge sentenced a man to jail for using MySpace to molest children. Blumenthal said the sentencing of David Leonard was "compelling proof" of the need for a higher age threshold on such sites. "We will continue to explore all options -- including possible legal action -- to compel MySpace to take safety measures that will help protect children from predators like [Leonard]," he said in a statement.
An age-verification proposal is still on the table in North Carolina. Cooper supports a state Senate-passed measure that would require the operators of social networks to confirm the ages and identities of their users.
Proposals like the one in North Carolina have been sharply criticized by those who doubt the effectiveness of age-verification tools in such settings. In a recent report, Progress and Freedom Foundation Senior Fellow Adam Thierer said perfect age-verification is a "quixotic objective."
"An arms-race scenario is obviously at work here, and because a perfect solution is impossible, we must guard against a false sense of security," he said, adding that "because technology is evolving at such a rapid pace in this area, there is a risk that legislative solutions will become obsolete very rapidly."
But at a National Association of Attorneys General meeting last month, Aristotle CEO John Phillips said some companies are trying to play both sides of the debate. He noted that News Corp., which owns MySpace, uses age-verification tools for gaming and movie Web sites. "This discussion today might be Rupert Murdoch vs. Rupert Murdoch," he said in reference to News Corp.'s chief executive.
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