For the US market, the way you frame the concern is the legal reality for Microsoft...parents who will blame Microsoft when information about their children passes online...are why there are no privacy guarantees in Microsoft's new policy. It's just too easy for a lawyer to convince a trier of fact that Microsoft "should have known".
I don't think Cisco's routers or Youtube's CDN or the typical iPad application have that capability. Stuff gets cached and logged automatically. Microsoft is a big target for lawsuits.
Sure. The way around that is to simply not allow users under 13 to have an account. If a user lies about his age in order to get an account, Microsoft is no longer liable.
Yep. We use fake birthdays for my kids' accounts. First it is an opportunity to explain to them that you simply don't need to answer questions truthfully just because a form asks. There's zero benefit to being truthful here; only potential downsides. Same with real name.
Second I explained that under 13 means stuff won't work, so let's add 10 years or so to make sure they don't have trouble.
