No offense meant - but why tie yourself to a huge multinational corporate entity that sells your privacy to whomever, whenever, and forever - so that you, the user, can have email or know where the next coffee shop might be... The cost of using Google's services is not nothing. And while some here may be aware of that, and accept that - the generalized user is not fully aware - even if told...

There are several reasons not to use Google's services, but there are even more reasons not to sign up a minor for Google's services. It's useful to look at the issue from Google's point of view... Google's terms of services are meant to be taken seriously - they track you, and tell you they track you. If a parent signs up a child for these services, the parent is giving Google the right to track that child - if the services are tied to a mobile platform - the parent is giving Google the right to track the location of that child --- and Google has every right to assume that the child is not a child, but an adult, as that's in the terms of services --- thus, a parent signing a minor child up for Google services is giving away the child's anonymity and privacy, for pretty much forever --- that's a pretty big decision, and I would want my children to make that decision for themselves after trying to understand the long-term consequences.