According to The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), users registering on websites like Facebook, which collect information from users, are asked to enter their (real) date of birth at the time of registration. This indicates that users (children) below 13 years of age are restricted from creating the account.
The same law is now applied to Google Plus and Google Accounts as well. Google is now requiring new users to enter their real birth date while registering on their social networking site Google Plus, or any other services provided by Google. If the entered date indicates that you are below 13 years of age, then you won’t be able to create an account and you will receive a notification stating that “Google could not create your account. In order to have a Google Account, you must meet certain age requirements. To learn more about online child safety, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website.”
If you’re already on Google Plus and your entered age is not above 13 years, then it is likely that your account will be disabled (deleted) in the next 30 days. There isn’t any option for you to edit you birth date of your current account.
However, you can re-enable your Google Plus account by completing any of the following steps -
Sending in a signed form via mail or fax with a copy of your current, government-issued ID showing your date of birth, or
Performing a small transaction ($0.30 USD) on a valid credit card.
Please note that you will be charged $1 USD for your transaction of $0.30 USD.
If you have chosen to use your credit card to make the transaction, then your Google Plus account will be re-enabled within minutes. However, if you’re using the mail or fax option, then it can take several days or even a couple of weeks for your account to get re-activated.
Facebook also requires entering user’s birth date at the time of registration. However, Mark Zuckerberg strongly feels that kids who are below 13 years of age should to be allowed to use social networking sites.
Though there are millions of kids (below 13 years of age) who are already using Facebook by giving fake birth dates, Zuckerberg is determined to change this rule and wants to make it legal. He believes that allowing kids onto social networking site will help them learn new things quickly and effortlessly.