For a U.S. based web hosting company, would it be OK (legal) for them to accept paying clients under the age of 18? Thanks.

if you plan to work for free - then OK. Their parents will call you later (after "Child" finish playing in webmaster) and give a lot of BS that his child used their credit card without authorization from parents and now they expect REFUND, fast :) This can happen for $5 hosting or dedicated server...

Lesson learn - my 2 cents

It's not worth the headache. In most states of the US, you have to be 18 anyway in order to accept a legally binding agreement. Take that into consideration.

- Craig

It's not worth the headache. In most states of the US, you have to be 18 anyway in order to accept a legally binding agreement. Take that into consideration.

- Craig

Thats what I figured was the case and why I presented the question. Thanks for the input everyone!

Who's going to order and say "By the way, I'm under 18"?!? You'll probably never know if your clients are 18 or 80.

--Tina

Who's going to order and say "By the way, I'm under 18"?!? You'll probably never know if your clients are 18 or 80.

--Tina

The question is if its legal, not whether people under 18 will sign up.

In some countries its illegal to sign up under 18's for credit, but its perfectly legal to sign them up to an agreement/contract from 16 upwards sometimes younger.

But I agree with Tina that you'll probably never know how old your client is.

It's legal to sell to customers under 18, but keep in mind that they can't legally agree to a contract, so if they decide to issue a chargeback against the credit card or similar types of issues, you really can't do anything about it. It's up to you whether or not you want to take the risk, but in most cases there's nothing wrong with it, especially if you're doing something like hosting where it doesn't directly cost you much to provide the service (e.g. you had some spare resources on the server waiting to be sold anyway).

Companies take me in if I want something.. I pay with my bank account via paypal and they call to verify everything..

I'm 14.

My parents dont mind. I don't see a big deal.

make sure to state in your TOS:

Minimum Age Requirement

ITHost.ca customers must be at least 18 years of age. Any individual under the age of 18 years ("Minor") must have a parent or guardian accept the TOS in order for the Minor to become a ITHost.ca customer. A parent or guardian who accepts the TOS on behalf of a Minor will be primarily liable for ensuring complete and proper compliance with the TOS, including the timely and full payment of the charges for ITHost.ca services, and such primary liability will continue even when the Minor has attained the age of 18, unless the parent or guardian obtains ITHost.ca's express written consent to the contrary. Any acceptance of the TOS or any other agreement for ITHost.ca's services will be deemed null and void to the extent that ITHost.ca will not be liable in any way as a result of the Minor's age or legal incapacity or the Minor's use of ITHost.ca's services.

As for chargebacks, thats about all you can do to protect yourself unfortunately :(

Yer i mean i have hosted a few of my brothers mates sites, there only like 16/17years old and they had like there parents pay me via paypal. Only thing is i accually know the guys, but... I mean any one could sign up to my hosting becouse its all automatic.

Hello,

Well, there is a age limit for the clients who signs up for a hosting company or who wishes to run any kind of business.

But as far as the minors are concerned, there should be a guardian who takes care of them, and must give a guarantee as far as their legacy is concerned.

You can check this link:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

Thank you.

Regards,

I would not consider it, if anything were to happen the responsibility might fall back to you.

I do have to wonder like one of the other posters - how would you know? Even on our checkout process though we have a box stating that you are at least 18 years of age

If you really wanted to, could you fill out one of those COPPA forms? Where the parents sign, and fax it in?

Eh, I would get the parent's approval, or at least let them hold the account in there name. Not worth it the other way...

Do you have any ideas what percentage of your clients constitute those under the age of 18? And if this segment is big enough are you ready to refuse the offer to make things look legal?

Parents are liable at the end of the day for anything that minors do. Frankly, I've noticed that minors who signup for hosting cause frequent problems (mostly those running their own hosting companies) and have frequent billing issues. In such situations its' best to be stern with them regarding suspension and all.

While I haven't adopted a hard and fast rule regarding minors, I just hope their #s remain small because refusing service to even minors doesn't make sense since they do have a right to host a website at the end of the day. You can't really stop a minor from signing up for service, since they still can despite your TOS using their parents information.

Just my 0.02.

I don't know what your signup traffic is but a personal verification phone call can do a lot to help with the cases of kids signing up without their parent's consent. Try to make the calls during during school hours if you have suspicions.

We had a parent call us once over a unauthorized charge.
I gave a refund, the next month the same thing happened again from the same person. I said "ok we will give you a refund, but we will have to report this as fraud to the FBI credit card fraud bureau". She then said she would accept the charges. It was never chargedback.