[IAEP] [UKids] "Google accused of tracking school kids after it promised not to"

[Adam Holt]

On Dec 2, 2015 11:02 AM, "Jerry Vonau" <jvonau3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That was one of the fears I had about enabling sugar's webservices[1]. I
was refusing to implement that functionality in the AU images as each
territory in AU has a different education department with different rules,
but was available in the SL testing images that were being produced by
myself the time. Now I have to ask the question has SugarLabs or other
deployments such as OneEducation signed the "Student Privacy Pledge"? Even
as a non-profit I would still consider them a company just protected by a
corporate shield.

Careful!

When http://studentprivacypledge.org appears to be a shill quickly created
by an advertising industry/Doubleclick/AOL alum, funded by the likes of
Axciom (http://youtu.be/F7P2ViCRObs !) whose business models inherently
compel "astroturf" DC lobbying to avoid student privacy practices with
teeth.

Very clever name they chose ("Future of Privacy") as if DC lobbyists will
have the final word on our mental-spiritual futures?  Even if Amazon still
refuses to sign the Student Privacy Pledge 14 months later, that they and
Google helped fund, comical if it weren't real peoples lives they were
playing with?

At least the presumptuous "Future of Privacy" is honest enough to outline
at https://fpf.org/about/ that they are DC lobbyists for business as usual
("self-regulation") rather than informed student/family consent.  Yet more
unreadable disclaimers, rather than tight clarity, and clean recourse with
teeth.

With so much DC lobbying money sloshing around (
https://fpf.org/about/supporters/) they will certainly be a player!
Driving home Silicon Valley's predominant
"our-antiprivacy-is-so-much-better-than-the-NSA's" mindset into 2016's
elections, and far beyond?

Ourselves, we should start with Global Educators, who _genuinely_ care
about student/community autonomy, the environment, and self-determination
as a life trajectory.  Beyond DC entrapment and the latest Wall Street
earnings target --- here instead are folks with Actual Backbones, opening
avenues of HOPE not fatalism:

http://studentdataprinciples.org
https://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/action/child-rights
https://www.eff.org/issues/student-privacy
http://childrenandbusiness.org

> Just my nickel's worth,
>
> Jerry
>
> 1. https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Web_Services
>
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 9:33 AM, Adam Holt <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>>
>> Electronic Frontier Foundation says Google collects data from students
and uses it to target ads and improve its products.
>>
>> "The digital rights group said Google’s use of the data, collected
through its Google for Education program, puts the company in breach of
Section 5 of the Federal Communications Act and asked the Federal Trade
Commission to investigate.
>>
>> Despite publicly promising not to, Google mines students’ browsing data
and other information, and uses it for the company’s own purposes,” the EFF
said..."
>>
>> "Last month, Google said more than 50 million students and teachers
around the globe were using Google Apps for Education, along with 10
million Chromebooks. The Google-powered laptops are “the best-selling
device in U.S. K-12 schools,” according to Google.
>>
>> But the EFF has some issues with the way Google delivers those services.
It says the company records everything students do while they’re logged
into their Google accounts, regardless of the device or browser they’re
using, including their search history, the search results they click on and
the videos they watch on YouTube.
>>
>> Google aggregates and anonymizes the data collected through its
education services, the EFF said, but not when the students are using other
Google services. And it argues that truly anonymizing data is “difficult to
the point of being impossible,” especially when it’s tied to identifiable
accounts at the time of collection.
>>
>> Google’s practices “fly in the face of commitments made when it signed
the Student Privacy Pledge,” the EFF said, referring to a document signed
by 200 companies including Google, Microsoft and Apple..."
>>
>>
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3011076/privacy/google-accused-of-tracking-school-kids-after-it-promised-not-to.html
>>
>> --
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>
>
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