Mass. Bill Would Put Privacy Squeeze on Cloud Apps For Schools

An anonymous reader points out a story at The Register about a Microsoft-backed bill proposed by Massachusetts state representative Carlo Basil which seems aimed directly at Google's cloud apps. The bill, if it should be enacted, would require that "[a]ny person who provides a cloud computing service to an educational institution operating within the State shall process data of a student enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade for the sole purpose of providing the cloud computing service to the educational institution and shall not process such data for any commercial purpose, including but not limited to advertising purposes that benefit the cloud computing service provider."

Comments

Corporations buy laws

[girlinatrainingbra]

Corporations have always bought the laws they want in their favor. That's what lobbying is all about. Every now and then, the companies are even caught giving the legislators the actual text of the laws which they would like passed: Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws ...

Microsoft used to not spend any money on political campaigns. Then, after a while, they figured out enough to post political contributions on both sides and then to hire a lobbyist to advocate for them.

Microsoft's budget for political lobbying exceeded that of Enron

Another older example

Microsoft's new push in Washington - CNET News http://news.cnet.com/2010-1071_3-1021938.html

Jun 30, 2003 Â CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh explains why the software maker has quietly given marching orders to its phalanx of lobbyists to get the government to ...

Of course, Google couldn't be left behind

Jan 26, 2010 -- Google quickly gaining on Microsoft in lobbying spending. Search giant is quickly catching up to Redmond as a tech power to be reckoned with in Washington ...

It's not as if this is anything new. Industry boards have long written laws: not just outlines, not just drafts, but the entire full set and exact wording just as they want it to be. That you can search for yourself. There are thousands of examples of that.

Re:Corporations buy laws

[mwvdlee]

Why is corporate lobbying legal anyway?

Re:Corporations buy laws

[DrEldarion]

The idea of lobbying, in itself, is not bad. Corporate lobbying, even, isn't necessarily bad. Corporations are just a group of people, and they're having a small set of people bring their concerns before the government representatives. This can be done for very good things, as well - Google lobbies very heavily for a free and open internet, and has been instrumental in things like shutting down SOPA.

The real problem comes in when less honest entities confuse "lobbying" and "bribing", and when (on purpose or by design) they confuse the lobbyist's interest with the public interest.

Re:Corporations buy laws

[taz346]

That's not really true. In Illinois' case there is a pension problem because for the past 20 years state government, under both Democratic and Republican governors, has balanced the budget by repeatedly deferring annual payments into the pension funds. So while they've collected money from employees for pensions, they've used much of it instead to pay general operating costs and keep taxes down (the state only has a 3-percent income tax). They've also refused to make local school systems contribute anything to fund their pensions - instead the state funds those 100-percent, even though it's the local school boards who decide how much their pensions are. That's been done because if local school districts actually had to contribute to their pension funds, they might have to raise local property taxes, which are also low. And that way of doing things has also been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. The Democratic state House speaker has been trying to pass legislation requiring local school districts to fund at least a small percentage of their pensions for at least a year now, so they'd have some stake in holding down costs, but Republican state reps and enough Democratic state reps refuse to even consider that. All in all, this way of doing things has left the state's pension system only 45 percent funded. Most economists say pensions should be at least 80 percent funded.

Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[Anubis350]

Google will simply stop offering free GApps for Education for Massachusetts Schools and Non-Profits. The reason the service is free is google is counting on that data.

Disclaimer: I am the admin for a small HS and am quite happy with our Google Apps right now

Re:Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[Enforcer-99]

Actually Google Apps for Education already has an option not to show ads - in fact I bet 100% of Google Apps for Education domains do this already so Google does not rely on advertising for these domains as it is. GAE is about mind-share and getting them Google-ized early - just like Microsoft has done for decades.

Re:Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[stephanruby]

Google will simply stop offering free GApps for Education for Massachusetts Schools and Non-Profits. The reason the service is free is google is counting on that data.

Not quite. Google Apps for Non-Profits does show ads, yes, but Google Apps for Education does not show advertisements to students or staff (it's like Google Apps Premier in that regards, except for the increase in quota). Google also goes farther than the bill, because University accounts are free of ads (not just K-12 accounts). Google only asks that once the students become alumni, that the ads get turned on by the University staff. It has always been that way since the very beginning of Google Apps.

May be, this bill is targeted at the Kindle (or perhaps the iPad). I believe these two have made more inroads into the K-12 market than Google Apps anyway.

1.4 Ads.
a. Default. The default setting for the Services is one that does not allow Google to serve Ads. Customer may change this setting in the Admin Console, which constitutes Customer’s authorization for Google to serve Ads. If Customer enables the serving of Ads, it may revert to the default setting at any time and Google will cease serving Ads.
b. Selectively Showing Ads. Notwithstanding Section 1.4(a), if Customer separates different classifications of End Users by domain or Google provides the capability for Customer to show Ads only to particular sets of End Users within the same domain, then Customer must enable the serving of Ads to End Users who are alumni.
c. Selectively Showing Ads. If Customer chooses to separate different classifications of End Users by domain, then Customer must enable the serving of Ads to Alumni. If Google provides the capability for Customer to show Ads only to particular sets of End Users, then Customer must enable Google's serving of Ads to End Users who are not Students or Staff. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/education_terms.html

Re:Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[Hentes]

The problem is, in the free market you can choose whether getting free cloud services is worth your privacy or not. But the kids didn't have a say in this matter, in fact I bet you didn't even ask them whether they agree with you forwarding their data to a third party.

Re:Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[hedwards]

Kids have no privacy, by law the schools are required to provide PII to the military recruiters so that they can be hounded for years on end and generally lured into something they probably don't want. If I had wanted to be hounded by the US Navy, I could have given them my contact information, it's not like they don't have advertisements or a phone number for various locations to call.

If I'm understanding the excerpt from the law correctly, this only applies to people that only provide cloud services, so MS would be free to do that itself if it so chose because it's not usually just a cloud provider.

Re:Result WIll be Opposite of Intent

[Mr. Slippery]

Really? And that's good how? So local IT staff can manage the in-house mail and document management system in their spare time?

That's good because preserving student's privacy is more important than preserving tax breaks for the wealthy. Restore taxes to their Clinton-era rates, hire more IT staff with the money. Jobs and privacy, a win all around.

Several thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

1) that ALL data format should be easily 100% convertible to open formats.
2) that all companies shall be prevented from selling/giving OSs or educational software at lower than their normal price so as to lock-in students.
3)

that's how it's supposed to be?

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile we in Europe laugh, because that's what our corporations by law are allowed only. Process data for the sole purpose it was collected for. No analysis whatsoever afterwards.

Academia has different concerns than most of us.

[Shag]

Coincidentally, just yesterday I got a pointer to this blog entry by a guy at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, noting that while cloud apps are great and useful and all that, cloud app providers are poorly prepared to deal with the academic sector's privacy concerns and needs (some of which may be demanded of the academic sector by law).

I believe Berkeley is in the midst of switching to Google Apps.

I like the bill, though not its motives

[Pollux]

I concur with the position that our laws should not be authored by corporations and should not be passed using the influence of campaign financing.

That being said, I support the bill. As a teacher, if I were to ask my students to take a survey in class, then aggregate the data and sell the results to a corporation eager to know how to market to that age group, I would be fired. Then why should a school condone corporations like Google or Facebook to permit the same activity? As a parent, I would be very upset to know that schools are allowing corporations to harvest marketing data while at school. And as a taxpayer, I want as little corporate involvement in our public school as possible.

I just wish Microsoft wasn't involved. Especially given all the illegal acts Microsoft has committed over the last two decades, it's almost the pot calling the kettle black.

Re:So if websites can't collect data for kids unde

[ceoyoyo]

No service provider should be collecting data about any school kid. If they go home and sign into Facebook, that's their decision. At school, it's not.

Microsoft may have written this law, but, as described, it sounds like a good one.

The hypocrisy is palpable

[walterbyrd]

Bill Gates funds massive school child database

New Gates-funded database keeps addresses and social security numbers of millions of children, so don’t worry

But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school – even homework completion

http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/04/new-gates-funded-database-keeps-addresses-and-social-security-numbers-of-millions-of-children-so-dont-worry/

From PJ at Groklaw:

And Microsoft is pushing for a law in Massachusetts that would prevent Google from being used for educational use, based on alleged and vague claims of conceivable privacy issues, when Google does *not* turn on ads for kids? Are they kidding?! What hypocrisy. And what interesting timing.