Remember the ad campaign for Google’s Chrome web browser titled “Dear Sophie“? The one that encourages using various search giant services?

Turns out, you can’t really do that. Why? Because it’s against Google’s TOS to create a Google account for children younger than 13 years old.

Here is an email from one of the fathers:



After finally deciding on a name for our unborn girl, I wanted to create a Google account for her even though I know that she’ll laugh at me 12 years from now that she has some outdated email account. I sent a Gmail invitation to myself since I couldn’t figure out how to create an account otherwise. I found an available email and filled the whole form out with our girl’s info. There was a field for birth date that I found to be odd, but I just filled in the current date to keep going. I received an error and I thought it had something to do with another field. I tried submitting a couple of more times when I finally received the attached message (the hyperlink sends you here). That’s when I realized it had to do with the birth date. I tried going back and using an acceptable birth date, but i was already screwed. I’ve tried a couple of times since (my original attempt was a week ago), but I get the same message. apparently I’ve made it on the Google pedophile blacklist.

So here is a shocker for you: marketers don’t always tell you the truth.

Via: TechCrunch