Controlled substance

A law designed to protect kids from overly-grabby marketers is instead leading to many companies reducing their content creation geared to children under the age of 13, limiting their access to content otherwise provided freely and causing many kids-oriented firms to spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal and compliance costs, according to CNET. Most recently, and absurdly, Yahoo's anniversary promotion to give everyone free ice cream scoops at Baskin Robbins through coupons includes the provision that kids under 13 must provide a credit card number to prove they're with proper adult supervision. Such credit card based age verification schemes have previously been associated with pornography and liquor sales.