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O2 Age Verification - What is this crap!?
Jaymitch1
Posts: 6,426 Forum Member
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why do i suddenly need to verify my age to view some sites on my mobile.
it says i need a credit card, but i dont have one anymore! so what am i supposed to do?
ffs its a contract phone so dont you have to be atleast 18 to have one anyway!?
i even need to verify my age to go on some parts of facebook. random and annoying.
does anyone know how to solve this?
it says i need a credit card, but i dont have one anymore! so what am i supposed to do?
ffs its a contract phone so dont you have to be atleast 18 to have one anyway!?
i even need to verify my age to go on some parts of facebook. random and annoying.
does anyone know how to solve this?
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I've ignored it so far. But then I don't use my mobile for porn or adult stuff.
O2 use bango.net to implement the adult verification (they do the charging) and to track user activity (anonymously) on O2 Active.
Another way around network filtering is to install a browser like Opera Mini as it uses a proxy server to deliver the webpage to your mobile.
Oh that must be why I am Ok most of the time.
I wouldn't use O2 Active or the phone's inbuilt browser as they are not as good as Opera Mini.
Anyone else getting this age verification garbage with O2 today? :cool:
But, it only seems to be on some sites and not others (in my case, both betting sites, one worked, the other didn't).
Why O2 believe they have to be our "net nanny" is beyond me. You need to be 18 to have a mobile contract anyway. Parents buying for their children should be responsible for blocking content, not O2. It should be "opt in" not "opt out".
I'm blocked from reading certain blogs (nothing rude!) but I can gladly search Google for "hard core porn" and access images from there :rolleyes:
Now I have to face the embarrassment of going into an O2 shop and telling them I want to verify my age. They're obviously going to assume it's for looking at porn.
It's just a pointless inconvenience.
After reading comments online it seems that people have to verify their age several times. Those using a credit card get charged £1 each time. They get a £2.50 credit on their bill, granted, but it should only need to be done once not several times.
*wipes brow*
I used my vodaphone mobile broadband dongle when away and was trying to find out about a laptop problem and was blocked from accessing a technical forum.
You don't know how they have tagged a webpage or if they have done it in error.
The best one was at work when someone tried to access the Essex County Council Library site and got a message back to say it was blocked as it fell into
category: explosives
I first realised this when I wanted to visit the Spotted Dog's website (a pub Nr Penshurst in Kent!)
I've posted a comment on the other thread you've opened about age verification (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1444092) - take a look.
@Carmen Queasy,
The reason we're doing this is to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content when using the internet on their phones, we require customers to prove they are over 18 before they can use these sites. Access to 18+ rated websites is therefore blocked by default. Customers only have to age verify once.
Yes, you have to be over 18 to sign a Pay Monthly contract with O2. However we know that many parents take out Pay Monthly contracts for their children, so it’s not safe to assume that all Pay Monthly phones are actually being used by adults on a day to day basis.
There are various ways of verifying your account. You don't have to go into a store. For more info on this, take a look at our blog post on age verification here: http://j.mp/g543LZ
I'd also like to stress that once you're verified, that's it. You don't need to verify for different websites.
One other thing to confirm is that this isn't a 'temporary thing' however as I've mentioned, once you're verified, you won't have to verify again.
I hope this answers all your questions. If not, check out the blog post I mentioned above.
Thanks
Paul
. But credit card is the most convenient method for most customers. Because you have to be over 18 to have a credit card, it’s fool proof in that respect. But we know that credit cards could be used fraudulently to age verify (for example a child “borrowing” their parent’s card). That’s why we take a £1 charge from the credit card, so that a message appears on the cardholder’s statement confirming the transaction has taken place – and providing a feedback mechanism.
my reading of this would be that the credit card doesn't need to be in the name of the person who has the contract. so far from actually having to be over 18, all someone actually needs is someone to lend them a credit card.
what is quite obvious is that this should have been announced before hand so that customers could verify their age in advance without a loss of service and restricted access to boobies. and without wondering if they were being scammed.
I just Tweeted to O2 to say what a poor communication job they'd done because I'd just had to tell everyone in my office because no-one had heard about it, and they tweeted back telling me to share their blog post about it. I replied saying that's their job!!!:mad:
It doesn't Paul.
I notice from looking at your Twitter feed that you seem to be lying about the Bongo service being secure for example. On the iPhone it isn't, and the credit card details you put in are sent to Bongo over plain text.
I was verified in the past and am now being asked again. Clearly its not working?
Why don't you just do an ID check like some other networks do?
Hi Davethorp – If you don’t have a credit card or a photo ID to visit any O2 store, you can call our customer services for doing the verification.
Thanks
Abs
It should be "opt in" and never "opt out". If parents want to limit their children on their mobile devices then this should be offered and set up from when they buy the contract and not enforced as standard.
But, hey ho... us little guys don't get to decide the rules.
Now I have to go into an O2 shop and embarrass myself asking them to unblock "adult" content, which is essentially what everyone will think in this situation.
I like O2 and have never had a problem (well, other than the shoddy Access package but IPStream is shoddy for most services and O2 were fine in dealing with the issue) but this irks me slightly.
If O2 really want to nanny us and decide what content is suitable and what isn't I may as well bleed them for as many £1.50's as I can. So £6 then
On the plus side they aren't as bad as 3 who even with age verification will decide that the website of a certain feature on the 3rd page of some newspapers is not suitable for people but kindly divert people to their own adult portal with harder stuff than women with their tops off. Not that I know of course
Looking at up to a week to fix it.
Also the Register carrying an article on how they have bungled this and inconvenienced people, including the BBC Technology Correspondent.