Google+ Does Not Allow Minors

Google’s new social networking service, Google Plus, has been growing really popular these days despite it not being available to users without an invitation.

As many might have noticed, Google+ has quite a lot of similarities with Facebook, the only impressive feature of it being the Circles that are basically the core of all Google+.

So, what else is different from Facebook? Apparently, trying to sign up to Google+ as a minor has an unexpected result:

This feature is not available for your account

You must be over a certain age to use this feature.

This is very interesting. It reminds me of the recent trouble Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of Facebook) had on the G8 summit related to users under 13 years that use Facebook. This is actually a huge difference from Facebook since Zuckerberg, speaking in front of the world leaders has asked the officials to “refrain from excessive internet regulation”. Zuckerberg said regulation would not work and that the leaders should instead invest in “high-speed technology”. Google’s measure is pretty drastic. Thirteen years is one thing, eighteen is another.

Of course, using another account with a different birthday is possible, and Google Plus is still not open to everybody so things might change until then, but Google’s approach on this matter is very interesting, especially since social networking websites are very popular among teenagers.

What is Google trying to do? Why not allow minors to use it? I would love to know what you guys think, so leave a comment below.