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

[Adam Holt]

ReCode has a useful summary of today's back+forth accusations down below.

But younger students may want to understand first, who invited the
advertising industry into the classroom in the 1st place:

https://epic.org/privacy/student/
http://www.studentprivacymatters.org
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy
https://washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/06/why-a-student-privacy-bill-of-rights-is-desperately-needed/

On Dec 2, 2015 8:32 PM, "Adam Holt" <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>
> Google goes for the Trump defense, denying everything:
>
>
http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-facts-about-student-data-privacy-in.html
>
> EFF clarifies Google’s Student Tracking Isn’t Limited to Chrome Sync:
>
>
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/12/googles-student-tracking-isnt-limited-chrome-sync

ReCode Summary Excerpt:

'The EFF, in its Wednesday post, admits that Sync can be a useful service,
but stresses that students shouldn’t be “guinea pigs in Google’s efforts to
improve its products” without the explicit approval of their parents.

“Google is creating this little army of loyal users. These kids are being
conditioned to give up their personal data in order to go online,” said
Cope, the EFF lawyer. “There’s just a lot of opaqueness of what data
they’re collecting and how they’re using it.”

More than 200 companies have signed the Student Privacy Pledge, including
Apple and Microsoft. (Google actually initially declined to sign the
pledge, citing its existing privacy rules, but then changed course a week
later
<http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/20/google-changes-course-signs-student-data-privacy-pledge/>
.)

A rep for the FTC confirmed that the agency had received the EFF complaint,
but declined to comment further.

Google was forced to pay a $22.5 million fine to the FTC in 2012
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443404004577579232818727246> to
settle charges for tracking Apple iPhone users.

Tech companies have all benefited from a White House initiative to prepare
students for the 21st century. Google may be the biggest beneficiary; while
its affordable Chromebooks have not seen wide consumer traction, they’ve
taken off in schools. IDC estimates that sales of the devices grew by 310
percent last year, surpassing sales from Microsoft and Apple.'

In Full:
http://recode.net/2015/12/02/google-no-were-not-snooping-on-students-with-our-chromebooks-apps/

> On Dec 2, 2015 1:00 PM, "Adam Holt" <holt at laptop.org> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
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>> >
>> > --
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