Google Calls Out EFF Over Claims That It Snoops On Students With Chromebooks (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) caused quite a stir this week when it alleged that Google is using its Chromebook platform, which has made a significant impact in education markets, to snoop on students. The charges were damning, with the EFF claiming that Google was violating its own corporate policies and using students' personally identifiable browsing data/habits to refine its services, in addition to sharing that data with partners. Obviously, Google would take such allegations seriously, and has thus responded to every claim brought forth by the EFF. "While we appreciate the EFF's focus on student data privacy, we are confident that our tools comply with both the law and our promises, including the Student Privacy Pledge..." said Jonathan Rochelle, the Director of Google Apps for Education. With respect to Google Apps for Education Core Services (GAFE), Rochelle asserts that all student data stored is "only used to provide the services themselves" and that student data isn't used for advertising purposes, nor are ads served to students. Rochelle also explains that personally identifiable data of students is removed, and only aggregated data of its millions of users is utilized to help improve its services.

Comments

Re:c'mon, man

[Meshach]

nobody believes that. if you HAVE it, you have COLLECTED it and the RETENTION of such data fits YOUR purposes.

When I send an email my ISP will will scan the email for viruses and to make sure it is not spam. How is this any different.

Who you gonna believe?

[PopeRatzo]

Google, or your own lying eyes?

Tell you what, the EFF has credibility in the bank with me. Google on the other hand...

Re:Who you gonna believe?

[slimjim8094]

The EFF has credibility with me as well (less than they used to, for similar reasons as PETA), but how can they possibly know what Google is using the data for internally? They don't have enough information to know anything beyond "it's being synced" - which for a feature called "Chrome Sync" seems pretty obvious. The reason it's being synced is also obvious and the blog post states it plainly - most schools don't buy a chromebook per student, they have a cart that's brought where required, and the sync is so that when the student signs in they have their personalization.

Google has always said "we use aggregate data to make our services better". They say it everywhere. It's how Google works. But they also say "we're not looking at individuals or less-than-anonymized groups of people". And there's no evidence they're doing the latter in addition to the former. I can't figure out on what basis - and with what information - the EFF is making that claim other than "we don't like Google". It sounds like a PR stunt for their new initiative. Really if the EFF *did* know that the data was being used for nefarious purposes, it would mean there was some sort of external leak of user data - which would be much more damaging than the supposed activity they are concerned with.

As a disclaimer, I do work at Google. I do in fact know what Google does with user data. It's pretty much what it says on the tin, and they are extremely serious about it. Nefarious use of user data is one of the few outright firing offenses, and they will find you.

So you don't believe me. That's fine, and I'm not surprised. But why do you believe the EFF, which is the party with the less information, in absence of evidence beyond their say-so? That's firmly conspiracy theory territory. Even if they did have a better track record (hard to say, they're not without mistakes), and didn't have any agendas (not true) they simply can't back up their assertions here with any evidence. You're left with an unverifiable claim from someone who can't know, vs unverifiable claim from someone who does know.

Which is more likely - the EFF made a bullshit accusation with no evidence that they suffer no penalty for and might even help them anyways, or Google making a bald-faced, PR-damaging lie that can be discovered with a simple subpoena?

Re:c'mon, man

[taustin]

My ISP hasn't built their entire business on collecting as much information as possible and selling it to advertisers.

Re:c'mon, man

[Zero__Kelvin]

"When I send an email my ISP will will scan the email for viruses and to make sure it is not spam. How is this any different."

People, at least here on Slashdot at the present moment, don't have an irrational hatred for your ISP.