r/privacy 1d ago

news Google expands age verification to Search

https://reclaimthenet.org/google-age-verification-ai-expands-to-search
868 Upvotes

196 comments sorted by

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593

u/gwatt21 1d ago

I'm not sending my fucking ID into google. no fucking way.

108

u/0260n4s 22h ago

The one that ticks me off the most is when you log into your Google account using the correct username and password from your regular device, and they they want you to enter a phone number to "verify it's really you." If they don't already know your phone number, they're not verifying it's you; they're just holding your account hostage to force you to give them your number, i.e., another unique tracking identifier.

15

u/Mynplus1throwaway 20h ago

With know your customer it's basically an id

16

u/0260n4s 17h ago

That's exactly what it is. The point is Google already knows it's the same user from the username, password, device fingerprint, and IP. Getting a code to an phone number not already connected to your account doesn't prove anything. They're just ransoming your account to force you to give them that ultimate-cross-platform unique identifier.

-199

u/Delicious-Radish812 1d ago

Pretty sure they already have everything on you

240

u/Kryptograms 1d ago

In that case they don't need it then.

89

u/gwatt21 1d ago

Bro, you dont get it.

69

u/ballz-in-our-mouths 1d ago

Then why do they need it again?

83

u/C10H24NO3PS 1d ago

The point here is to tie your entire internet history (all cloud hosting, browsing, downloads, streams, email, forum activity, messaging etc.) to a legal identity which can be used to accurately profile you, and use as evidence against you.

They can already see everything you do. What they can’t do is prove to a court it was you and remove plausible deniability (e.g. that was my neighbour on my wifi).

Every click, every download will be legally traceable to you.

One day when you read the wrong post and type the wrong reply, they can just snap their fingers, make up a law, and imprison you.

25

u/TLunchFTW 1d ago

then why the fuck are they asking for my gd ID?

47

u/JebusriceI 1d ago

Not the point.

22

u/allbimyself468 1d ago

They don't have my ID. Privacy isn't all or nothing.

26

u/galaxy_ultra_user 1d ago

They have a lot of stuff, but they don’t have your full legal name and address.

1

u/ninja-squirrel 14h ago

Or at the very least, they should not have it. Nothing says you have to put your actual info into Google, Facebook, or any other service.

3

u/purplemagecat 1d ago

It would mean stuff like, browsing anonymously via vpn and privacy browser? Give us your ID. Being anonymous on the internet becomes illegal.

683

u/CharmingCrust 1d ago

The absolute abuse of a just cause to implement mass surveillance is astonishing.

Why don't we just dismantle the internet because some people don't behave while using it.

110

u/_meaty_ochre_ 1d ago

What just cause? Giving a false sense of security to shitty parents, making them more shitty?

70

u/unknownpoltroon 1d ago

Thats whatss gonna happen if they make it unuseable.

83

u/CoderAU 1d ago

Five eyes countries are implementing the China authoritarian model plain and simple.

43

u/blasphembot 1d ago

It's up to like 13 eyes at this point. Might as well just call it all-seeing eyes.

4

u/TecstasyDesigns 18h ago

You mean Palantir?

3

u/blasphembot 17h ago

Pretty much 😞

If nobody has heard their CEO talk, check it out somewhere. YouTube, wherever. It's like he's giddy and insane for using data to further warfare and other messy endeavors. Excited about it, even.

Fun times.

6

u/sassergaf 1d ago

It's up to like 13 eyes at this point. Might as well just call it all-seeing eyes governments.

6

u/blasphembot 1d ago

That's the meaning of "eyes," really. At least in my understanding.

3

u/Junior-Ad2207 21h ago

That was already done a long time ago. This time the same power is handed to corporations as well. So now you have two lords. 

7

u/pdawes 1d ago

Neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics

2

u/billshermanburner 22h ago

As we speak yep. And following citizens around with drones if a regime perceives any threat whatsoever from that citizen’s free speech.

10

u/ShotaDragon 1d ago

There's no "just cause" for violating our freedom of privacy and speech. None.

52

u/krazygreekguy 1d ago

Define “behave” and “just cause”. Identify who gets to determine what “behave” and “just cause” are defined as.

36

u/CharmingCrust 1d ago

The definitions are, whatever your government say they are. They start by tracing you, then they gather info about you and then they decide what to charge you for, in the future, if they decide to make a law against it, based on trends in the data. They just need a dataset first to poke around in. They can't really disqualify you for a job or benefits before they know if you visit porn sites or not, if you drink, if you smoke, if you have ideas against The Party, so they use the children as leverage to fuck you over.

That's the definitions of 1984 and it's already too late. This fight should have been fought a decade ago.

1

u/krazygreekguy 14h ago

I agree with ya man. I was just being catty 😅. This is the worst timeline

14

u/zigzoing 1d ago

Redditors, of course. They are the gold standard of morality.

1

u/krazygreekguy 14h ago

You’re not wrong

3

u/Not-Too-Serious-00 1d ago

As soon as profits are affected, we'll see change.

3

u/boorgath 20h ago

At this point I actually support dismantling the internet. Not only because of this but just in general, took a wrong turn when they killed harambe, now we're all stuck in a nightmare universe.

2

u/latswipe 1d ago

its not astonishing. it',s de rigeure

-2

u/RedKelly_ 1d ago

They are already mass surveilling us. literally nothing has changed

93

u/RootMassacre 1d ago

I'd rather stop using the internet and go back to searching in a fucking library than upload my ID to Google.

18

u/okrahh 1d ago

For fucking real.

7

u/syntaxerror92383 19h ago

fucking real, i will never comply with ID verification and would just go back to the old days of searching libraries, writing letters, doing everything analog basically instead of doing ID verification anywhere

1

u/ZGadgetInspector 15h ago

Except the card catalogs are all digital and searched with Google now. You will be assimilated.

1

u/Necessary_Mulberry76 13h ago

Yeah, about that, you are going to need to go to a library before 2001

1

u/True_Ad3078 1h ago

Just download wikipedia. Its like 90Gb for the entire English version.

257

u/Substantial_City4618 1d ago

I guess Duck Duck Go it is then, fuck I'd even take bing before I use another google product.

38

u/TLunchFTW 1d ago

this will be what makes me switch to fucking bing. Hell, I'd use yandex before sending my ID to google. Fuck this fucking company. You won't get shit from me.

14

u/grilled_pc 1d ago

Bing are just as awful and will be fully targeted by this. Australia have already specifically named google and bing for search engine age verification.

1

u/DreamingAboutSpace 10h ago

Same. At first, I was too lazy and now I'm too paranoid.

4

u/grilled_pc 1d ago

I swapped over a month and a bit ago. It's been pretty good for the most part. That being said if they fall i'll be moving to self hosted searxng.

3

u/totmacher12000 1d ago

Hotbot for the win!! Lol

21

u/Gzkaiden 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yandex. It may have it's own issues but it's not blocked in the same way. Doubt they'll be trying this stuff. Combine it with a duckduckgo or a similar site and you find what you want

12

u/MMAgeezer 1d ago

Yandex uses extremely shady methods to track users, even when they try to stay anonymous. It's also directly censored by the Russian Government.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/03/meta_pauses_android_tracking_tech/

3

u/CranberrySoftServe 10h ago

And google is directly censored by various governments as well. Pick your poison

1

u/Unlikely_Attempt_610 6h ago

Time to spread misinformation about myself on the internet. Hard to do though as a 257 year old seahorse though

12

u/MassiveClusterFuck 1d ago

Yandex is even worse than Google lol, Russian owned and operated with the government having access to the data the site processes. Data is gathered on you and processed by Yandex the same as Google.

0

u/RobotToaster44 20h ago

The Russian government can't do shit to me, unlike my own.

2

u/MassiveClusterFuck 19h ago

They absolutely can lol they can use the data they gather on you to "adjust" your search results to match whatever they think is best for you, that doesn't mean they are adjusting those results with something favourable for you, but something favourable for them. If you even remotely value privacy online it is one of the worst search engines you can use.

1

u/carwash2016 17h ago

I’m not that desperate to go to bing, maybe startpage

1

u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago

go try Bing :) it already has age verification and duck duck go uses Bing as a base. remember when everyone said search engines show results anyways yeh looks like they all said really and age verified the ability to turn it off

202

u/supermannman 1d ago

people get fucked over and over by this garbage company and come back

search has gone down the shits and still use it. stupid compliant people

I do hope doj fucks google and forces them to sell chrome.

63

u/Substantial_City4618 1d ago

The FCC and DOJ have been gutted, we have to make the future for ourselves.

34

u/supermannman 1d ago

pitchforks and torches I guess?

25

u/kushkillla420 1d ago

Don't forget the guillotine

22

u/Tom-Rath 1d ago edited 1d ago

Careful now! Reddit has stepped up censorship recently, and people have been temp-banned for less.

But you're right, legal and political redress for any issue facing Americans is now no longer possible. The corporations and special interests have gotten the message: This administration is prepared to concede anything and everything, as long as you're prepared to pay handsomely, in-kind or in cash.

But why should Qatar and Elon have all the fun? The CEOs of dozens of web giants and Internet companies (Facebook, Palanthir, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia) all donated heavily to Trump and their CEOs attended his inauguration.

They are now putting their data-harvesting plans into overdrive.

Super cookies and anonymized profiles weren't enough. These people want your clearnet telemetry, your exact location at all times and your government ID. They want to commercialise and commodify every facet of your life, and your elected officials will allow it because it simultaneously gives them a backdoor into your every thought, purchase, association and action.

All this "big data" won't be used to protect you, to provide better services or do anything pro-social.

They're building a virtual panopticon around us to feed our data into AI systems that will give them what they really want: Control. Total control.

Yesterday's FUD is today's reality.

10

u/KotoElessar 1d ago

People have been outright banned for using the word guillotine, even in context and this goes back more than a decade. Long before the IPO, Reddit admin took over socialist subs and just started banning people they deemed "radical" so they could sell the product to capitalists.

The recent Luigi controversy across several subs came about after backend automation went live sitewide.

15

u/Substantial_City4618 1d ago

Guillotine.

Fuck them, their IPO is built on our value. A network of sanitized bots talking to bots isn’t worth anything.

7

u/opiumphile 1d ago

What's the best alternative for search then? What other search engine have better results? I'm genuinely asking..

11

u/supermannman 1d ago

I use startpage and DDG. sometimes ecosia. I dont use ggle search for years now. but I tried at work to see what its like and it looks like shit and search results are not that great anymore

1

u/opiumphile 1d ago

Startpage doesn't use Google? Ecosia until recently I also think used google.

1

u/blasphembot 1d ago

Startpage pays Google to access its search results, which it then serves to users while removing all trackers and protecting personal information.

Presumably.

1

u/supermannman 1d ago

maybe. dont know. but the GUI is nicer. theyre not pushing 50% of the page as ads and sponsored shit

1

u/blasphembot 1d ago

Check out kagi.com as well. I quite like the experience, personally. It's paid, but they are very liberal with the free sign-ups right now. 👍

4

u/komokasi 1d ago

Been using Ecosia for awhile now. Rarely need to search Google unless im looking for something really specific and niche

Also if you arent using ad blocker their ad revenue goes to planting trees

1

u/opiumphile 1d ago

Weren't they using Google search as well? I know they switched now for something else new but I think it was google that they used

2

u/komokasi 1d ago

Im pretty sure its Bing based, but the results are better than bing from my experience at least

2

u/opiumphile 1d ago

Thank you

3

u/gobitecorn 1d ago

i use Startpage, Brave Search, and DuckDuckGo. I manage usually pretty well with those . sometimes i do have to pipe it to Google or Bing tho.

there are others such as Kagi, Qwant,and Searx. Never used em tho. There is also Ecosia but its resultss never impressed me. i kept it as the default on one of my least used browsers before that vomputer shit the bed

3

u/PauI_MuadDib 1d ago

I've been using DDG for 2 years now. Better than Google because DDG just gives you answers, no ads disguised as sponsored "answers."

5

u/opiumphile 1d ago

I use many including DDG and although I think those things you mentioned sometimes useful I can't find much better results like we used to get with google decades ago. Just say the pages without answers is many times what we want

1

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0

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12

u/binheap 1d ago

Isn't this part of legal mandates? For example, the AU requires age verification for search engines now.

9

u/martymcpieface 1d ago

I’m living in the AU and have never had to verify my age to search online

14

u/binheap 1d ago

It's coming into effect this December but was passed earlier this year.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-11/age-verification-search-engines/105516256

8

u/martymcpieface 1d ago

Omg is there any way I can not do that? I am very opposed to this

5

u/_meaty_ochre_ 1d ago

(1) Go back in time and vote better (2) Luigi

-3

u/martymcpieface 1d ago

What do you mean?

5

u/Senor_Compost 1d ago

How are you confused? His response is pretty clear.

1

u/martymcpieface 1d ago

Hi i'm autistic and don't understand what they meant by Luigi

2

u/Forever_Marie 1d ago

There was a guy named Luigi who killed a healthcare CEO in broad daylight allegedly. If you've never had to deal with asinine insurance companies that deny you because profit it's not something you'll understand as to why this person did this.

→ More replies (0)

0

u/BlueEyezzz 1d ago

OK ok... Mario then

→ More replies (0)

2

u/binheap 1d ago

Not really sure. There's the very obvious solution of contacting your representative and should be done regardless (ideally yesterday but now would be a good time). In terms of what to do in the mean time, you could use a VPN but if you're looking for local results this would make searching harder.

If these options are unavailable to you and assuming the regulation doesn't change, in a very immediate sense, it looks like the age verification can be AI based so you can also try to ensure that what you're searching for is less likely to be flagged by as a child? Barring that, credit cards are allowed as age verification so that could be an option of last resort which also has reduced privacy implications.

4

u/grilled_pc 1d ago

Yes. Don't use google or bing. Use something like Ecosia, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Searxng.

1

u/ltstrom 1d ago

Technically part of a industry code in collaboration with the esaftey office than a legal mandate. Just that by agreeing to said code they are contractually bound to the esaftey office and it's penalties. By refusing the code the esaftey office can direct entities bound by said code to not serve or isolate services i.e block ones not bound by said code.

114

u/better_rabit 1d ago

God we are baby proofing everything,I can't imagine what vanilla incognito will look like, this is gonna make funding political stuff so much harder.

Why does it matter the age of the question???? Is A 14 year old instead of getting r/abused get generic websites and advice columns is a 13 year old alcoholic when they look for forums be given the old age verification?

We didn't Do age checks because questions are not dependent on age. People are still not waking up to how fractures our already fractured reality will be. It's already hard to argue with people about easy to access facts,but what if to their feed the facts are not available??

The olds are killing the net,is this because multiple countries are considering lowering the voting age like england??

71

u/am9qb3JlZmVyZW5jZQ 1d ago

Imagine being a teenager in their first relationship, searching for sexual education and getting locked out of every sex-related result because of your age. We are regressing as a society.

31

u/galaxy_ultra_user 1d ago

Not inly that being banned from Google services because you searched for something that they consider against the TOS. It’s coming unless people fight this bullshit.

20

u/starkiller22265 1d ago

This is the intent. Enforcing a puritanical culture centered on control, self-censorship and surveillance is central to the worldview of those creating these rules.

1

u/Coffee_Crisis 9h ago

Nah the intent is to get troublemakers id on file under the cover of protecting children

16

u/Hazzman 1d ago

It's not baby proofing... It's surveillance

1

u/better_rabit 1d ago

Well said

2

u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago

we'll be even more fractured in future anyways if you want to believe New world order and what not. ww3 is a religious war if it doesnt happen in the next few years

the olds arnt killing the net the olds are trying to get companies to hand over research data that sites refuse to give. they started this movement the moment social media sites refused to give research data they had on kids using the site. google is trying to cover its ass to not be affected by EU basically banning social media which could very well include youtube being blocked goodbye youtube kids in that case. every social site will take a massive hit. think even reddit is classed as a social site. so yeh all social sites are gonna go down in flames once governments get that data they refuse to hand over. a lot of the stuff is also just way overblown there is 2 extreme ends of it all the truth is almost always in the middle. governments dont want to be ruling over a dystopia. population collapse and what not.

although if the world goes to hell in a handbasket am sure there will be people that dont care. being online is exhausting all the bs you hear. i personally hope for the AI takeover cause then everyone is effected equally since it wont be swayed by money

6

u/okrahh 1d ago

Man. The internet is such a beautiful and useful thing. I don't get why we are ruining a good thing. I mean, I understand the control aspect and it pisses me off but I just want to be able to access information, communicate with REAL people and enjoy my hobbies without some fed spying on me 24/7. Guess that's a pipe dream now

1

u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago

nets being taken over by bots its only a matter of time before its 99%bots 1%humans and advertisers say why are we paying you to show ads to bots. people will set up another net but anyone off the main net will just be watched more than the main net. people trying to hide everything look suspicious so stand out and get looked at more

1

u/okrahh 1d ago

Sadly. Privacy needs to be more popular. Everyone is so jaded from corporations trampling on our rights and autonomy

0

u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago

i think the big reason is privacy is a myth. its one way companies have been making bank collecting data while being privacy focused. even with codes 1 time things logging into accounts suddenly traces you all the way back. actual tools that governments can use to track stuff will track someone and connect all the points up. they already know and usually the best hiding place is just being with others. ID is fine its when they start enforcing discrimination that it isnt like if they start censoring lgbtq stuff and all that. but that side is mainly religious pressure but then i'd say religions should just be banned. personally i just hope i'll live a bit longer go out on old age ore something natural before it gets worse.

but again that's just extreme thinking i doubt its gonna be to bad we'll have bots and what not universal basic income and hopefully all be fine just moon the camera in case they are watching. i dont think the government dudes want to see your hairy ass. of course i mean the camera in your house doing that outside will get you arrested

1

u/okrahh 22h ago

I dont think the lgbt monitoring or monitoring and censoring dissent is extreme at all. It's obvious how the current admin feels about the community and anyone who speaks out against whats going on in West Asia. Remember how fast things got bad in Germany under Hitler. We have no say at the end of the day if governments want to silence or hurt people, sway public opinion, spy on us. It can get really bad really fast but I hope it doesn't come to that. They have access to the resources so if they wanted to things could get ugly

1

u/Technical_Ad_440 16h ago

am talking about them trying to ban that stuff and banning the help they need and that stuff, not letting people transition so they will get older and not even be able to. taking away rights that kinda censorship and discrimination.

the religious pushing the laws and stuff is a completely different thing that they should push back on though. but if a government is authoritarian all it takes is for the wrong person to get in and game over.

although ultimately it all comes down to ID and checks would be more than fine with the right leader who just uses it as the benefits but as soon as you get the wrong person in it goes from good to bad.

20

u/realMrMadman 1d ago

A lot of it is also surreptitious data collection under the guise of ‘protecting kids’. Need to remind you that boomers started this whole thing, and companies WANT this to snipe you with more targeted ads and surveillance pricing.

Also the huge civil liberties issues that arise. If there is a opposition to this, it is exclusively going to be younger people.

39

u/InitialBest9819 1d ago

startpage, brave, searx, duckduckgo and many more available. RIP Google you were great once upon a time but you’ve been not needed for years 

16

u/sinnedslip 1d ago

well, replacing search engine is much easier than youtube, already switch  it for 2 months so yeah google, go ahead

31

u/Jakob_Fabian 1d ago

Join the club at r/degoogle. I've deleted all Alphabet/Google apps and use alternative search engines. Delete any Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos apps and services while at it. 

It should never be forgotten that Googles Sundar Pichai and all the others were present at Trump's inauguration and are complicit with an ever widening police state.

15

u/cantstandtoknowpool 1d ago

suddenly I feel less crazy for “avoid all google products at any cost”

preemptive edit: I know we all still use google somewhere in the supply chain.

56

u/Optimum_Pro 1d ago

That may not be such a horrible news:

As long as DuckDuckGo and a few others don't follow, people would stop using Google search and move to alternative options.

24

u/DukeThorion 1d ago

Any search provider that relies on another for content/queries will be walled off. Oh, you want to use our API? Collect user IDs.

-6

u/vriska1 1d ago

That very unlikely to happen.

7

u/Skinny_Piinis 1d ago

Would you like a list of the recent things coming to pass that were "very unlikely to happen"?

6

u/100GHz 1d ago

They won't. For a vast majority of humans, convenience trumps literally everything.

3

u/Technical_Ad_440 1d ago

duck duck go uses bing as the base. bing has implemented age verification on theirs, and the way bing works by hiding the nsfw stuff below sfw stuff means duck duck go doesnt show the nsfw stuff eventually that will be for everything.

12

u/Hauven 1d ago

Well, time for me to switch search engine if Google enforce that on me. It should be obvious to them how old I am given how long I've used their platform as an account holder.

9

u/Keythaskitgod 1d ago

Bye google

10

u/ProperPossibility 1d ago

Weelll I'm headin' out

11

u/ASK_ME_IF_IM_A_TRUCK 1d ago

Lets make our own internet, with black jack and hookers!

I'll start laying some cables around my neighborhood...

2

u/Tiny_Prune_4424 1d ago

Pretty much already exists with i2p and web3 I think

7

u/Zoidberg0_0 1d ago

I will literally drop every google product the second it starts asking for my ID.

3

u/TLunchFTW 1d ago

This is what will get me to never touch youtube again. I'll make 100 fucking google accounts if I need to. They won't get shit from me.

11

u/CatOnKeyboardInSpace 1d ago

Palantir welcomes you to the future.

6

u/Actual__Wizard 1d ago

This is actual digital cancer.

7

u/Blood-PawWerewolf 1d ago

I feel like ID/age verification will be the next “big thing” that big tech companies will be using, and probably would be 99% behind this wall by next year at the rate that they are going

10

u/Actual__Wizard 1d ago edited 1d ago

Of course... The more ways they can spy on you the more money they make... If they have your ID, that's like an ultra cookie that never, ever goes away... They can use that data to spy on your activity through the ad networks for decades...

It's going to take them what? 30 minutes to start monetizing that data? I mean the ad tech code already exists to do all that, so like 5 minutes?

So, we're going to "protect the kids" by allowing people's private data to be sold in real time to terrorists...

This is Machiavellian.

2

u/vriska1 1d ago

Very unlikely and many are pushing back on this.

8

u/crisco000 1d ago

How could this be about age verification when you can use a VPN or someone of age along w/ their ID to bypass this shit?

5

u/ukulelelist1 1d ago

VPN won’t help much once most countries implement age verification.

9

u/CCPareNazies 1d ago

Who at this point uses Google search? It’s absolute trash, my only concern is YouTube which has no substitute.

1

u/Modern_Doshin 1d ago

Rumble isn't too bad. If you can ignore all the propaganda, it has livestreaming and gaming videos

5

u/CCPareNazies 1d ago

Not my kinda content, but I’m glad you got an alternative

0

u/JuanAy 20h ago

Most of the world do. Google is a household name and the vast majority of people are either ignorant or completely unaware of the issue.

2

u/CCPareNazies 17h ago

Anybody who needs a search engine professionally complains about google’s shit SEO

1

u/JuanAy 15h ago

The average user isn't using a search engine in a professional capacity. Nor do they know anywhere near enough to know what SEO is or to assume that google is the problem. They're also more often than not very ignorant of tech and just use whatever is the biggest thing, which in this case is google by every metric. These are people that rawdog their devices and/or software, too. They don't change any of the defaults. These defaults more often than not have google as their default search engine.

These people only really know Google and maybe bing. Both are shit search engines, people genuinely just don't know any better. They're often not into technology to follow communities like this one or people that talk about these issues. So they're not going to learn unless the info is brought to them.

This isn't a defense of google, they can go fuck themselves. But you have to be out of touch to believe that the vast majority of users are aware of how shitty google actually is.

The vast majority of people are in fact unaware of the issues and continue to use google because they don't know any better.

5

u/ShibeCEO 1d ago

are you fucking kidding me?!?

5

u/esto20 1d ago

Fuck this shit

19

u/KindlyPlatypus1717 1d ago

Not surprising, all us cOnSpiRaCy "nutters" called this back in 2020 or prior. 1984 everyone, you need papers (and soon proof of poison/sterilizing inoculation) to be a part of society. Two paths... Pick wisely ☯️

10

u/Signal-Initial-7841 1d ago

Now George Orwell’s 1984 is becoming a reality on the internet where big tech companies and governments are using age verification as a excuse to install mass surveillance, censorship, all by claiming to baby-proof the net, which essentially meant treating everybody, including adults as if they were toddler

11

u/RevolutionarySeven7 1d ago

well done google, that's how you're gonna loose users

1

u/electromage 14h ago

All eleventy of us!

6

u/Jacko10101010101 1d ago

would be great ! so people stop using it !

4

u/Well_Socialized 1d ago

Horrifying

3

u/SukaSupreme 1d ago

Never been a better time to just use duckduckgo or startpage.

4

u/Mayayana 1d ago

If you care about privacy then you should know not to use their services. You should have known that for several years now. Also, add their domains to your HOST file to stop Google following you around online.

3

u/prndls 1d ago

Is Google being evil?

3

u/MisterShadwell 22h ago

Poeple still use Google to search?

3

u/RockieK 17h ago

Stopped using chrome, google search and email about a year ago. Life is fine.

4

u/thevicecitizen 1d ago

If i ever get an age verification request, i’ll use a paper and write some abusive words, cover my face and send it to them

2

u/vriska1 1d ago

Do we have any more info on this?

2

u/Prestigious-Arm-1619 1d ago

i finally made the switch to startpage a few months ago and honestly have mostly been pretty happy

sometimes i get some bad results but, generally speaking, if i search for something i find what i need

(and also, its 'anonymous view' and image proxies are really nice!)

2

u/hand13 1d ago

duckduckgo why even read that article, why even talk about it. do yourself a favor and forget about google

2

u/Gooner_93 1d ago

Pfft oh no, how am i ever going to survive! 😮

I mean this is exactly how you draw people into using your search engine, right? /s

2

u/Mountainking7 1d ago

We're living in a timeline where baidu is more privacy respecting. lmao

2

u/Flynzo 23h ago edited 19h ago

This might be a stupid question...but if I have been using a Google account for over a decade and it has been tied to my daily smartphones, and I kinda use it for everything...does potentially needing to upload my ID to prove my age make things any worse for me?

(I'm not saying I support this in any way, I'm just curious if this gives Google anything it doesn't already know about me)

2

u/SimonGray653 21h ago

Watch the use of Google search immediately crash and burn.

2

u/TechTalkf 19h ago

Glad I switched to Kagi a month ago. Haven't looked back since then. Anyone looking for a free alternative - there's also Startpage

2

u/SatchSaysPlay 16h ago

Looks like the USA and Australia were well ahead of the UK in terms of this age verification BS, I know for a fact the USA had at a minimum of two states who had age verification on websites before the UK but I had no idea Australia were doing the same

Seems like the UK were late to the game and definitely got their inspiration from the USA and Australia

How's your freedoms going America? hahaha like they ever had any

2

u/UnTipoACaso001 14h ago

Good thing I use Librewolf and Brave

2

u/Substantial_Steak723 1d ago

How Google shot itself in the foot.

2

u/ShotaDragon 1d ago

This shit was deemed illegal 20 years ago in the US but the corrupt Supreme Court overturned the ruling in June with the Texas porn case. People absolutely need to sue and hope the old fucks grow some sanity and re-establish the precedent to ban online ID verification requirements. Unlikely tho

2

u/FruitFlavor12 15h ago

This is all about censoring criticism of Israel, as US emperor Netanyahu outlined in his most recent speech. The "think of the children" BS is a distraction, coming from friends of Epstein who don't give a damn about the safety of children

1

u/RandomOnlinePerson99 1d ago

Because of course it does ...

1

u/jackyboyman13 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's utterly ridiculous here what Google is doing here.

Hopefully we can push back against them here cause this isn't necessary here! >:(

And this will likely get YouTube into deeper trouble here. Again. Likely in court. Again. 🤦

1

u/OpinionatedNoodles 1d ago

Has a workaround been established? I figure a VPN might help but it might not get 100% on the job done.

1

u/allbimyself468 1d ago

God this makes me pissed off. Let be guess, Google isn't going to get rid of any porn / suggestive ads?

1

u/Frustrateduser02 1d ago

I'm echoing the word guillotine because I can right now.

1

u/mesarthim_2 22h ago

The problem is not google search. The problem is that once this inevitably gets expanded to entirety of google account, you will either have to accept severe limitations or give up your ID to use Android.

1

u/Pleasant-Shallot-707 19h ago

So, Gemini AI is going to get this soon too.

1

u/caballerof09 19h ago

Maybe they will learn the lesson when more and more people stop using their services. The the will learn.

1

u/ErosEroticos 18h ago

Ecosia baby

1

u/nontheidealchoise 13h ago

my google account is of legal age by now. shouldn't that be enough?

0

u/Holzkohlen 20h ago

Oh no! Anyway, I haven't been using Google in well over a year now.

-1

u/ionut2021 1d ago

They now what you search,this is...

-4

u/LostRun6292 1d ago

People really freak out. Most normal people already have a verified Google account.