Tackling under-age online sales
 

Buying products online couldn't be easier.

With a few clicks shoppers can browse through dozens of websites and choose size, colour, shape and destination - all from the privacy of the home.

That's great if it's a CD, book or generic product being procured but that self-same ease of purchase is increasingly of concern to parents who can no longer control what their children are buying online.

Young people are using the anonymity of the web to buy all types of products suitable only for adults - made easy by purchasing prepaid credit cards which don't require stringent proof of age.

A recent survey of some 1,000 individuals between 13 and 17 years old found that nearly half - 48% - of teenage boys under 18 have tried to buy adult DVDs or violent video games online over the past year.

Over three quarters were successful.

And with 5% of 14-year-olds having successfully purchased alcohol on the internet, parents and politicians are calling for tighter controls in cyberspace.



More here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7393449.stm

yeh, i bought a porn dvd on ebay when i was 15. it rocked.

Wait so they buy the cards offline without much issue, yet want tighter controlls online?

Isnt that like kid easily buying alcohol so there should be more efforts into child proof bottle caps?

online is one place i havent tried to buy underage girls.. is it really that prolific? :P

I have no idea how this would even work if it does become legislation that all adult related goods have to have an age verification page as how are they gonna stop a 15 year old from using his dads credit card and entering his dads date of birth..beats me

yeah! same here :thumbsup

they arent going to be able to stop that, because thats theft.

By the same reasoning misuing prepaid cards is fraud. Nobody seems to care about what people themselves do, however.

The problem is parents for the most part are in a fog when comes to monitoring their childrens internet use.

The underlying problem is the age when one is considered an "adult" is set somewhat too high ...

It's only in recent times, in Western countries in particular, that age 21 was designated as when one was considered an adult in regards to owning property, holding official offices, etc. And some of that is still true even today ... one still must be age 21 in some states to conduct some types of business activities.

But it wouldn't be until much later that the "adult" designation would also apply to sexual activities ...

The age of consent for sexual activity / marriage was around age 13 +/- (if even set at all) in many places until relatively recently, as in the late 20th century.

Digressed a bit, but much of the blame here isn't on the kids, but the laws that ignore human development and set the age that one is permitted to do something much too high.

To digress even further ... a 14 year old in many juridisctions can be tried as an adult, a 16 year old can drive a car, a 18 year old can be drafted / serve in the military, a 18 year old (in many states, such as Pennsylvania) can legally serve alcohol, a 18 year old can in many states legally engage in gay sex - but yet in some jurisdictions has to be age 21 to legally purchase gay porn, ... etc, ad finitum.

Ron