Age is just a number—but for celebrities, it also has a big influence on their paychecks. Worried about age discrimination in Hollywood, The Writers Guild of America West is trying to convince super-popular movie database IMDB to let celebrities remove their birth dates from the site, so the public—and industry movers and shakers—won't know how old they are. (The Screen Actors Guild has also reportedly asked that the birthdates of non-mega-stars be removed.)

I've certainly Googled celebrities to see how old they are. (We tease "try guessing her age" for Julianne Moore on Allure's November cover, and I immediately looked it up online, because I couldn't believe she's turning 50.) Obviously stars have been lying about their ages since the dawn of Hollywood, and now more than ever many are willing to use cosmetic procedures, personal trainers, and any other anti-aging tools they can find to keep looking young. But in the information age, we expect to find out anything we want with just a few keystrokes, including a celeb's real age. So should they be allowed to hide their ages from sites like Wikipedia and IMDB? Does the public deserve to know the truth, or is their privacy more important?

Article from Allure