Ask HN: Is it legal to ask for personal information without reason?

3 points by frsandstone 7 years ago | 4 comments

While surfing the web of Youtube content creators I ended up on a website that prompts the user for their date of birth in order to continue. No reason, no information about what it will be used for - just preventing the user from continuing without typing in this personal information.

"What year were you born?" [Blank area to type in year] "Enter" Privacy Policy

It seems super spammy but is it legal? It's a little scary that people can be preyed on in this way.

Source: https://www.j-14.com/

pepsi 7 years ago |

Seems like a very misguided effort to comply with COPPA since the site content is likely geared toward teens/pre-teens.

I clicked the "enter" button without selecting a year and the URL changed to https://www.j-14.com/?age_gate%5Bbirth_year%5D=&age_gate%5Bc...

I would assume the better way to notify users is the way other sites have an alert bar at the top or bottom with their cookie policy.

slater 7 years ago |

Well I hope they enjoy my age of -1.

1996 7 years ago |

To tell you the answer, I need to know the last 4 of your social

icedchai 7 years ago |

Seriously? Just enter fake info.