Are employment applications using age discrimination tools?

Can anyone explain to me how our society has gone from not allowing companiesto ask a birth date or the year someone graduated from school to determine age, to now most job applications and employment websites include these questions on the must answer areas?Isn't this a tool which allows the company to determine your age and discriminate as they wish?Am I confused or am I seeing one of our rights disappear without question?It is bad enough they ask your race, gender and whether or not you were in the armed forces, now they also have set up tax break question areas at the end of each application.They allow you to click on the icon allowing you not to state the information.However, does anyone else think this may automatically flag the application as not eligible for hire.I understand the right for them to know more about an individual, but shouldn't these questions be answered after they look at your qualifications and determine if they want to interview the person?I guess I am concerned at seeing another area of our rights has disappeared without anyone asking why!