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Thanks - this is way more informative than the article. Google certainly should be doing more to combat this issue, but the crux of this issue seems to be that

Thanks - this is way more informative than the article. Google certainly should be doing more to combat this issue, but the crux of this issue seems to be that there are a lot of intermediaries and consumers (teachers and schools) in the ed-tech industry with a very clear obligation to do more about this but aren't.

csydas 10y ago
Well hold on a minute. Part of the problem here was that when Google Apps for Education (GAFE) was introduced, privacy and security were touted as huge selling points. For years IT administrators in Education were told that GAFE was different, GAFE was a service for schools, it respected FERPA guidelines, it was isolated from the rest of Google's ad services. But years afterwards, once everyone had migrated over, integrated everything with Google, then they it broke that Google had lied. And it's not like people sat on their hands either - there was a lot of anger and many complaints. But that only goes so far when you have an Education IT budget - migrations take a lot of tim and a lot of effort, and a lot of money. The schools got conned hard, and it's not something you can just decide to switch on a dime either. Some Ed-Tech folk certainly carry the blame for evangelizing for Google, but the Education IT Administrators need to be given a break here when everything led them to believe Google's advertising.
- Clownshoesms 10y ago
  You're expecting me to believe a company that relies on soaking up personal data, and tried to pull the "We will do no evil", is stiĺl at it? Say it ain't so.
  - csydas 10y ago
    Well, yes. We expect that when a company presents a legal contract promising not to do something and that service X doesn't do action Y that it's truthful. If they want to enter into it to intentionally violate said contract, it just seems absolutely bizarre that they'd even present a contract in the first place. I get the feeling that this wasn't some insidious conspiracy from Google to get us hooked on GAFE so much as internal forces at Google not talking to one another and data-collection ultimately winning out. I find that the more complicated explanation is Google decided to do this despite the risk of fighting fines and additional regulations from the government as well as potentially thousands of institutions, and potentially tens of thousands of individuals led to believe the terms and conditions of the contract were different than what Google presented, as opposed to Google made GAFE and presented it at face value, and other forces within Google decided to go ahead with the data collection anyways. Right hand not knowing what the left is doing just seems more plausible and reasonable. I don't know either way, and cynicism can be healthy, but this just feels like cynicism for the sake of cynicism. Yes, Google is a data blackhole, and it's an unscrupulous company, but this would just be absolute incompetency on their part. I'm not denying the possibility, but that's a big pill to swallow.
- askvictor 10y ago
  Citation needed
  - csydas 10y ago
    Right here on their page: https://edu.google.com/trust/ https://edu.google.com/trust/ They promise not to do the things the EFF specifically calls out and the page has since been updated to change some of the claims that data is "not collected" to "data is not shared".

csydas 10y ago

Well hold on a minute. Part of the problem here was that when Google Apps for Education (GAFE) was introduced, privacy and security were touted as huge selling points. For years IT administrators in Education were told that GAFE was different, GAFE was a service for schools, it respected FERPA guidelines, it was isolated from the rest of Google's ad services. But years afterwards, once everyone had migrated over, integrated everything with Google, then they it broke that Google had lied. And it's not like people sat on their hands either - there was a lot of anger and many complaints. But that only goes so far when you have an Education IT budget - migrations take a lot of tim and a lot of effort, and a lot of money. The schools got conned hard, and it's not something you can just decide to switch on a dime either. Some Ed-Tech folk certainly carry the blame for evangelizing for Google, but the Education IT Administrators need to be given a break here when everything led them to believe Google's advertising.

Clownshoesms 10y ago
You're expecting me to believe a company that relies on soaking up personal data, and tried to pull the "We will do no evil", is stiĺl at it? Say it ain't so.
- csydas 10y ago
  Well, yes. We expect that when a company presents a legal contract promising not to do something and that service X doesn't do action Y that it's truthful. If they want to enter into it to intentionally violate said contract, it just seems absolutely bizarre that they'd even present a contract in the first place. I get the feeling that this wasn't some insidious conspiracy from Google to get us hooked on GAFE so much as internal forces at Google not talking to one another and data-collection ultimately winning out. I find that the more complicated explanation is Google decided to do this despite the risk of fighting fines and additional regulations from the government as well as potentially thousands of institutions, and potentially tens of thousands of individuals led to believe the terms and conditions of the contract were different than what Google presented, as opposed to Google made GAFE and presented it at face value, and other forces within Google decided to go ahead with the data collection anyways. Right hand not knowing what the left is doing just seems more plausible and reasonable. I don't know either way, and cynicism can be healthy, but this just feels like cynicism for the sake of cynicism. Yes, Google is a data blackhole, and it's an unscrupulous company, but this would just be absolute incompetency on their part. I'm not denying the possibility, but that's a big pill to swallow.
askvictor 10y ago
Citation needed
- csydas 10y ago
  Right here on their page: https://edu.google.com/trust/ https://edu.google.com/trust/ They promise not to do the things the EFF specifically calls out and the page has since been updated to change some of the claims that data is "not collected" to "data is not shared".