More from the article...

...Critics of the legislation contend this requirement threatens the privacy of adults and the ability to use the internet anonymously, in California and likely elsewhere, because of the role the Golden State's tech companies play on the internet.

"First, the bill pretextually claims to protect children, but it will change the Internet for everyone," said Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law professor, in a blog post. "In order to determine who is a child, websites and apps will have to authenticate the age of ALL consumers before they can use the service. No one wants this."

The bill, Goldman argues, will put an end to casual web browsing, forcing companies to collect personal information they don't want to store and protect " and that consumers don't want to provide " in order to authenticate the age of visitors. And since age authentication generally requires identity details, that threatens the ability to use the internet anonymously....

aside: apologies for my original headline here. I struggled to hit the 60-character limit, and it shows...

@#2 ... Sounds impossible. ...

From what I've read, it is usually done by asking for a credit card number.

@#2

Found this...

@#5 ... I have mixed feelings. ...

The "protecting the children" rationale has been frequently (I'm tempted to say, "always," but let's go with "frequently" for the nonce) been used to justify attempts to tame, yeah, let's say tame as opposed to control, the internet.

I've got lots of questions. For starters...

How long will those identity verification records be kept? How will they be used, aside from protecting the children? Who will have access to them? Really, who?

@#7 ... We woudl leave on our bikes after breakfast and and mom would say be home for lunch. Then we would leave on our bikes and mom would say be home for dinner. No adult supervision for eight hours. We had the chance to be kids and we could do whatever we wanted to do, whether it was put pennies on the train tracks or throw firecrackers at a hornet's nest. ...

Yup. Add in spending hours walking through the woods with friends, or riding the bicycle a few miles to the beach and spending hours there, and you've described my experiences as well. ... and I grew up in NYC.

... put pennies on the train tracks ...

My friends and I would compete to see how long we could make a penny by putting the penny on the tracks multiple times.

Spoiler alert: after the penny reaches a couple of inches, it tends to stick to the wheel of the train and disappear from the track...