Google To Stop Spying On Kids

Well this is mighty nice of Google.

Today, we’re taking additional steps to enhance the educational experience for Apps for Education customers:

• We’ve permanently removed the “enable/disable” toggle for ads in the Apps for Education Administrator console. This means ads in Apps for Education services are turned off and administrators no longer have the option or ability to turn ads in these services on.
• 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.

Click to expand...

meh -- i personally view children as NOT the oh so precious resource everyone makes them out to be. They are loud, ugly, smelly, and cost lots of money for what is essentially a gamble on growing up to be good and/or take care of you when you get old.

Only loosely related: maybe if parents DID spy on their kids more we wouldn't have so many psychopaths shooting or stabbing up schools. When did we go from "im the parent do what I say, or else" to "oh we must carry you around on a pillow and respect your feelings 24/7"

At least now little bobby won't see any ads for a cheap version of office or other hardware he might need for school. I mean, after all he's not paying for the use of Gmail or anything... how dare google want a return on their massive investment.

collegeboy69us said:

meh -- i personally view children as NOT the oh so precious resource everyone makes them out to be. They are loud, ugly, smelly, and cost lots of money for what is essentially a gamble on growing up to be good and/or take care of you when you get old.

Click to expand...

you were a kid once too, no?

collegeboy69us said:

I mean, after all he's not paying for the use of Gmail or anything... how dare google want a return on their massive investment.

Click to expand...

I think that educational access is paid for by schools that use it. Not 100% sure on that or anything because I haven't at all researched it though.

Anyhow, it doesn't matter because children aren't legally able to consent to having Google collect data about them in a lot of nations so, in many places, that kind of data collection is actually against whatever laws so stop being all mister angry face and trying to protect Google for finally doing something they're legally obligated to do in the first place.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:

I think that educational access is paid for by schools that use it. Not 100% sure on that or anything because I haven't at all researched it though.

Anyhow, it doesn't matter because children aren't legally able to consent to having Google collect data about them in a lot of nations so, in many places, that kind of data collection is actually against whatever laws so stop being all mister angry face and trying to protect Google for finally doing something they're legally obligated to do in the first place.

Click to expand...

I do agree that if a school or state is paying for education tools then that changes things... the only part I'm familiar with is Gmail itself. And that's always been (and hopefully always will be free). Nothing is truly free in this world - if the kid has a gmail account and is under the legal age... isn't it the kid themselves who acknowledged they were under/over 13 or whatever the age is? (accepting the license terms or whatever)

To answer colinstu's question: yes I was a kid once -- but I was the kind who wasn't carried around on a pillow, and my parents were responsible enough to kick my ass when I did something stupid/mean/lied... they also knew what the word "no" was and used it to great effect keeping my ass grounded in reality.

I really don't see why everyone get's so bent out of shape, it's not like google is popping up boxes on the kids screen asking if he likes free candy, or what superhero underwear they are wearing.

collegeboy69us said:

Nothing is truly free in this world - if the kid has a gmail account and is under the legal age... isn't it the kid themselves who acknowledged they were under/over 13 or whatever the age is? (accepting the license terms or whatever)

Click to expand...

If it's part of Google's educational toolkit, then the gmail account is issued to a student. The student isn't going to Google and requesting it and then stating what their age is. This stuff is like an app suite and set of mailbox services that schools use for communication and whatever. It's not the same as their public-facing services and a child isn't involved in the request or creation of an account. That happens at the institutional level and then access is turned over to the student after account creation.