The law states that a site may collect information with the consent of the child's parents. That is fairly innocuous. The problem is that Google scuttles the account and thus the Chromebook.
The law goes a lot further than that, the law prevents Google from marketing to children, so it would have to disable ALL of its marketing and tracking programs for children's accounts. It is reasonable for Google to scuttle the account instead, these services are not intended for children.
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The law states that a site may collect information with the consent of the child's parents. That is fairly innocuous. The problem is that Google scuttles the account and thus the Chromebook.
The law goes a lot further than that, the law prevents Google from marketing to children, so it would have to disable ALL of its marketing and tracking programs for children's accounts. It is reasonable for Google to scuttle the account instead, these services are not intended for children.
Unless Google is trying to build a business that these children will come to rely on once they get older.
At Google's scale, I think it definitely makes sense to put the extra engineering effort in to comply with the law while the kid is too young.
On the other hand, I'd probably sign up as a 5 year old if it meant Google would collect less information from me and show fewer ads. Paid account?