> now its an internally contradictory horrible law because apparently it isn't important enough to consistently enforce
Law is not an abstract code, but an incremental sometimes futile approach to shape society. They only want a way to hold big corporations accountable to exploiting children. They don't actually intend the effects on the consumer, so they tried to fix on easily changeable effect: "Don't worsen the privacy for people who want it." If you are using e.g. MS Windows, you have given up everything already. They do a lot of "telemetry" and for example everything you typed into MS Word is already licensed to Microsoft.
So what makes kid users on linux so special that they don't need nanny state protection? Are the Californian legislators just throwing them to the wolves? Or are the protections being put in place here not actually important?
Seriously, what is the message here supposed to be about the kids using linux? And why are they so different from kids using Windows or Mac? Are there other safety features we can exempt kid linux users from?
> They only want a way to hold big corporations accountable to exploiting children.
Let me know when they pass actual laws tackling that, then. Even if this law was ironclad, this does not solve the simple factor of using a "verified" device.
You don't fix a problem of society from private corporations by restricting society. You need to actually attack the corporations itself. But governments are sheepish to go after "their own", or people who can bribe them into feeling like one of them.
It's not a great implementation either. But COPPA is an example in the right direction and made companies need to change their algorithms based on the user account's reported age. That's more of the direction to move in.