Technology giant Google has ended its practice of scanning its users' Apps for Education accounts for advertising purposes after being sued by students and other Gmail users last year, the company announced Wednesday.
The Google Apps for Education tool suite is a service the company provides for free to more than 30 million students, teachers, and administrators globally. The service includes access to Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and cloud storage.
Users of the Apps for Education tools suite and other Gmail users have alleged that the company’s data scanning practices violated federal and state anti-wiretapping and privacy laws, according to the suit filed in a California federal court.
The plaintiffs have further claimed that the company crossed a “creepy line” by using scanned information to build “surreptitious” profiles of students, according to Education Week. The users who filed suit have sought money damages and an injunction preventing further scanning of accounts. The suit is ongoing, and, after a preliminary hearing in February, the court denied a motion for certification as a class action lawsuit in March.
The Mountain View-based company has since acknowledged that—while it claims to have not placed ads inside the education apps since 2006—the company continued to scan millions of Gmail messages sent and received by students who have used the Apps for Education tools. A google spokeswoman told Education Week that such e-mail scanning and indexing of Apps for Education users' accounts could not previously be deactivated.
“This should draw the attention of the U.S. Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and state legislatures,” Khaliah Barnes, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington-based advocacy group, told Ars. “Student privacy is under attack.”
A Google spokeswoman told Ars that the company is not providing any statements outside of its blog post, which notes, “Last year, we removed ads from Google Search for signed-in K-12 users altogether.” Additionally, “We’ve permanently removed all ads scanning in Gmail for Apps for Education, which means Google cannot collect or use student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes.”
While Google claims to have stopped scanning student Gmail accounts for ads, it continues to mine user data through Gmail and a host of other Google services for advertising and other purposes.
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