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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Google Stops Scanning Student E-Mail

Google will announce this morning that it’s scrapping its controversial policy of scanning student and teacher emails sent through Google Apps for Education and will no longer use the platform to deliver any advertising. Ads had been previously turned off by default, but school administrators had the option to turn them back on — and the terms of service specifically allowed Google to target ads to alumni still using Apps for Education after leaving a school setting. Until this morning, Google also scanned and indexed all email sent through the platform. That policy sparked anger among educators, parents and privacy advocates. It also sparked a federal lawsuit. So the company changed course.



— “Earning and keeping [customer] trust drives our business forward,” Bram Bout, director of Google for Education, wrote in a blog post announcing the new policy. “We know that trust is earned through protecting their privacy and providing the best security measures.” Bout said similar changes will roll out soon to Google Apps customers in business, government and other sectors. Bout will discuss the changes at a Google Hangout on Thursday at noon Eastern; he will be joined by the chief technology officer for a school district that uses Google Apps.

The chat will be accessible here: http://bit.ly/1iF2iiz.

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