I'm doing a ton of wine cork projects, and I am sorting all my corks out by location so I can do a "Napa trivet" and a "Sonoma wreath" and so on. For the corks whose name I don't recognize, I'm going to the web to see where the winery is located.

I keep hitting these "enter your exact birthdate" screens. I don't want to be telling these sites my real birthdate! That is private information that could be used. With all the privacy issues on the web, I'm not comfortable spreading that around. So I always lie.

I realize it's a silly thing anyway, I mean a kid could lie about their birthdate if they really wanted to learn about high end Zinfandels. Can't they ask simply "are you age 21" without knowing my exact date of birth?

Do you guys answer those questions honestly, or do you lie?

I am most often admitted to such sites with a birthday in January, very often the first, and I scroll down the year menu until I'm somewhere over 20 years.

I don't know that it is possible to lie to a machine. Am I lying if I say "Yes" when a pop-up asks me do I want to view 'unsecure items' on a webpage? I don't want to look at anything other than what i am looking for, I really won't be viewing periperal items, and hell, I'd likely be happier doing something else entirely. Does that make ny pressing the right button to gain access a lie?

Yes that's very true, I don't bother to change the month or date which are usually set to January 1st. I just change the year to something near the bottom. I guess wineries must think a lot of very old people are going to their sites, based on my visits

That's a good question - I believe you are signing a legal contract, in essence, when you answer that question. Just as when you sign up for a Facebook account and certify that you are over the age of 13. You are certifying something legally to them, which has repercussions if the police get involved later on.

"I believe you are signing a legal contract, in essence, when you answer that question"

No, you are not.

I won't get into the details of what makes a contract valid and enforceable or indeed what constitutes a contract at all, but believe me those 'enter age' pop-up/drop-downs do not qualify.

"wineries must think a lot of very old people are going to their sites ..."

I'm sure I have entered 1908 at least once.

Well, to look at it from another point of view, I'm pretty sure this has to do with COPA regulations, which try to shield minors from things they should not be able to see -

US Supreme Court and COPA Laws

"COPA defined the posting of material that is "harmful to minors" on the Internet for commercial purposes as a criminal offense. But the Act also provided that website operators and other content providers could defend against a prosecution under the Act by showing that children's access to harmful content was restricted by requiring the use of a credit card, a debit account, an "adult access code" or "adult personal identification number," a "digital certificate that verifies age," or "any other reasonable measures that are feasible under available technology.""

So they were trying to do something which had a legal meaning.