For many years, companies have been concerned with how children can be protected from inappropriate content on the Internet. Age verification systems have therefore been increasingly used in some countries. But regardless of this or adapted to new technologies and trends, large companies such as Google are also very concerned. The possibilities have been discussed for a long time and some things have already been implemented.

YouTube is an example of how the protection of minors is repeatedly discussed on such a platform. But the first measures have also been taken with Android and apps must now have an age rating. Now, a new measure is to promote youth protection in the Chrome Web Store. In the future, Google wants to protect children there from extensions that are only intended for adults and prevent them from being installed – rigorously and without exceptions. So far there have been no age ratings for the extensions in the Chrome Web Store and there has been only moderate editorial control of what was disseminated there. This allowed children to access content that was not appropriate for their age. That should change soon.

The Chrome browser already offers the option of setting up child access via Family Link. In the future, this should also be used to block Chrome extensions if they are not age-appropriate. According to the current plans, minors should no longer be able to use apps with adult content. Neither can the parents change that. A permit from them does not change the lock. It remains to be seen whether it is right to take the parents completely out of the decision-making process.

By the way, adult content is understood to mean apps with a sexual reference, descriptions of sex positions (even without pictures), pictures of people in belted clothing. Explicitly sexual content is then apps with pictures of naked people or sexual acts and also apps that contain links to pornographic websites.