Children under the age of 13 are a massive and relatively untapped market for internet companies due to federal privacy laws, but now Google is ready to risk those treacherous legal waters in order to sign them up. According to the Information (subscription required), Google is preparing features like a kid-safe version of YouTube and a parental dashboard in order to attract more kids onto its sprawling web platform, which also includes products like Gmail and Chrome. Such moves by Google would echo similar initiatives by Facebook, which has reportedly been experimenting with “under-13 features” since at least 2012. For the internet giants, signing up the under-13 crowd is a big opportunity, in part because millions of young people reportedly use their services under false credentials already.
Read the full story at Giga OM, and the original report at The Information (paywall).