Preserving is important, sure. But if the settlement required them to delete it and they keep an offline backup and this ever gets out, the settlement is voided and it opens up a world of hurt for them.

This is not a debate about the merits of preservation but about legal repercussions for the Internet Archive.

And open themselves up to massive penalties? That would be beyond stupid.

I’m glad to hear this. Some weeks ago I was pondering how to do age checks anonymously and this was pretty much the idea I came up with. It just makes a lot more sense because it does what you want without revealing anything private.

Edit: had a brain fart and wrote unanimously instead of anonymously