PayPal Denies Teen Reward For Finding Bug 318
itwbennett writes "You have to be 18 to qualify for PayPal's bug bounty program, a minor detail that 17-year old Robert Kugler found out the hard way after being denied a reward for a website bug he reported. Curiously, the age guideline isn't in the terms and conditions posted on the PayPal website. Kugler was informed by email that he was disqualified because of his age."
Too young for what ? (Score:5, Interesting)
If he is too young to receive money for finding a bug, is he also too young to be criminally prosecuted for exploiting a bug ?
Normal US procedures (Score:3, Interesting)
Welcome, Mr. Kugler, to the good ol' US-of-A, where you aren't a real person until you can cast a ballot. If you get a job, you must follow a different set of rules. If you break a law, you get a different justice system. If you win a contest, you have a different set of rules that forbid you from winning anything. That's right, in several states you can't actually own property until you're 18. I'm not sure what jurisdiction PayPal/eBay is playing ball in, but in general, don't expect the government to ever side with anyone who hasn't reached that magical moment where they are instantly freed from their childhood stupidity.
You see, despite biology saying that humans are mature at around 15 years, the Puritans who founded the United States were rather squeamish about things like youthful ambition, political activism, and worst of all, sex. The generally-accepted age of maturity moved back several years, finally settling at 18, and it's been stuck there. Of course, anyone under 18 who wants to have their full rights doesn't have the right to get them (except through a red-tape-filled emancipation process), and no parents ever want their darling little children to grow up so fast, and no politician would dare propose an affront to "traditional family values", so there are no realistic attempts to get more legal power for minors.
A few states allow certain adult rights to 16- and 17-year-olds, but those rights are usually restricted to things like "can work on a farm" and "can be prosecuted as an adult for heinous crimes". Practically all other rights are the domain of the parents, so there's a slim chance that your parents could ask for the reward as promised, but that's unlikely to work, because they didn't find the bug.
Welcome, sir, to America, where our child abuse is civilized!
Debtor cannot dictate form of payment (Score:5, Interesting)
The rules say that "Payment is paid out through a verified PayPal account, once the bug is fixed." It's not required to have a PayPal account to win. That's just the payment mechanism eBay prefers. Once someone has won, PayPal owes them money. PayPal is a debtor here.
Debtors do not. in general, get to require that their creditor jump through hoops to get paid. Whether eBay is entitled to require payment via their own system is a legal issue which eBay would probably lose. Any collection lawyer or collection agency should be able to take this case and win.
On top of that, this is a "contest", and in the US, contests are regulated by the FTC's Contest Rule [ftc.gov]. Federal law limits what a contest operator can require after they've told someone they've "won".