[thelist] Age checking (was: targeting effectively)

[martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com]

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Subject:    [thelist] Age checking (was: targeting effectively)

>> Problem 1 - for legal reasons, we need to ensure that
>> all users have passed a self-certification of age and
>> country of residence before they can see the site (it
>> was an alcohol site, but this could have been true for
>> a number of sectors)

>I'm curious about this - I've just been approached to do a site that sells
>wine online...

>I'm assuming the self-certification is simply a case of redirecting people
>without the cookie to a page that says "Please click this button to
confirm
>you are over the age of 18"

Fine if you can absolutely exclude non-UK people. Unfortunately, that's not
really possible, so you need to ensure that they are allowed to use the
site in their juristiction. So some countries absolutely bar all
advertising and purchase of alcohol (France and a number of Middle Eastern
countries), and others have different ages (eg 21 for the US).

You can either explicitly ask for date of birth and country of residence
(eg http://www.guinness.com/) or you can simply ask them to confirm that
they are allowed to use the site where they live (eg http://www.malts.com/)

>which then posts a form, sets the cookie, and
>allows the user to go about the business of getting virtually pissed - am
I
>on the mark?

Once you're ok that they're allowed to see the site, yes.

>From what you say above, it sounds like you do it at the point of entry to
>the site as a whole, but would it be equally effective/valid at the point
>where they're about to start putting booze into a shopping cart?

It's best practise, yes. That's what we've done for http://www.malts.com/

>Any particular wording you'd recommend, or other points to consider? Yeah,
take a look at the terms and conditions on your competitors' sites and take
advice from a lawyer who knows about alcohol advertising.

Cheers
Martin


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