The purpose of this article, in summary, is that Google is being accused of allegedly collecting students search requests through Chromebooks. Google argues back that they are not doing anything wrong. The complaint is that Google's storage and analysis of the student profile violates a "Student Privacy Pledge" that the company signed the year before. This pledge contains a provision guaranteeing that students' personal information will not be exposed for "non-educational" purposes. This is resulting in Google's investigation by the FTC in order to stop it from using information on students' activities for its own purposes and order it to destroy any information it has collected that is not related to education. Google believes that they have already been following the laws enforced by the FTC. The FTC concluded that the company had created a technological loophole that enabled its digital advertising network to shadow the online activities of people using Apple's Safari browser without their consent, which resulted in Google paying a $22.5 million fine.
The idea that Google was able to find a loophole around their "Student Privacy Pledge" in order to obtain information that was not educational based, is scary. The part that is truly concerning is how Google thought that their actions were not wrong and that they were not violating a persons' rights. The fact that someone stood up and complained about Google being able to get their information and using it for their own benefit through Apple's Safari browser was a smart idea. It is a relief to know that the FTC fixed this problem before it got out of hand.
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