My last post made me think about this, because the Stone Brewing website has one: an age verification form that you are required to fill out before accessing a beer site.

Just what is that all about? Not only are they annoying, but they’re utterly useless as well: the internet doesn’t care how old you are, and a blind elderly spider monkey could enter any fake age and circumvent the form with no effort. I suppose beer sites that do this are trying to be socially responsible and are following the advice of their legal departments, but it really strikes me as being clueless about the web.

It seems to me that if beer sites truly want to be socially responsible, they’ll have a section on their site devoted to exactly that: alcohol awareness and legal responsibilities. And get rid of the forms!