Google has permanently stopped collecting or using student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes. This has been done to enhance the educational experience for about 30 million students, teachers and administrators using the Apps for Education across the globe.
The company proudly posted on the official Google Blog: “Today more than 30 million students, teachers and administrators globally rely on Google Apps for Education. Earning and keeping their trust drives our business forward. We know that trust is earned through protecting their privacy and providing the best security measures.”
Last year Google took off ads from Google Search for signed-in K-12 users. Now it’s taken two additional steps:
– It has permanently removed the “enable/disable” toggle for ads in the Apps for Education Administrator console.
– It has permanently removed all ads scanning in Gmail for Apps for Education.
This change could take some of the sting out of Microsoft Corp’s anti- Google ‘Scroogled’ campaign that criticised Google for scanning the content of emails to serve targeted ads.
Despite its attempts to offer users a secure surfing experience. Microsoft and some lobby groups have scorned the move saying that scanning for ads are still running by default for “core services” like Contacts, Calendar, Gmail, Talk and Drive, but not for Google search or YouTube.
This means that Google is still serving targeted ads to students logged into their school account and venturing out to other Google properties like YouTube and search.
According to Bram Bout, Director – Google for Education, users who have chosen to show AdSense ads on their Google Sites will be able to display existing ads on their websites. However, they will not be able to edit or add new AdSense ads to the existing sites or new web pages.
Google is also making similar changes for all of their Google Apps customers including business, government, and legacy users of the free version.