Google Accused of Collecting Student Data

The search engine giant has been accused for using student information to improve its experience.

On December 1, 2015, a non-profit privacy organization, The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the Federal Trade Commission to conduct an investigation against Google’s education services. The non-profit organization believes that Google Apps which is merely for educational purposes saves and collects student’s data which is a violation of their privacy.

 According to the complaint that was lodged by EFF, the sync settings feature of Google’s web browser, Chrome saves the passwords, bookmarks and search history on to its servers. The company that runs under Alphabet, Inc. signed a Student Privacy Pledge earlier in 2015. Under the pledge signed by the Google, as well as 200 other companies, they made a row to now collect any information that the students provide apart for educational purposes.

On Wednesday however the search engine giant completely denied these accusations of tracking and storing student data in a public post. According to the director of Google Apps for Education, Jonathan Rochelle, the company is appreciating the effort that EFF has made and its concern but the company says that it is fairly confident that its tools comply with the terms and conditions and do not violate any privacy of any student.

The complaint also suggested that the search engine ‘collects, maintains and uses records’ of whatever information that is provided by the student whoever uses the Google Apps tool for educational purposes. This usually happens when the student is logged in on to their Google accounts and it usually does not matter which device they are on. Furthermore, it added that the information that the students put on the web, google uses that to enhance the customers experience along with finding better ways to conduct advertisements.

The website uses this data provided by the students to choose the best advertisements for them and post them onto other websites such as YouTube and Bloggers, which are not for educational purposes, to attract that specific target market.

According to Google News, the company stated to FoxNews.com, that their service is helping the students learn and keep their personal information private and secure. The EFF staff attorney Nate Cardozo stated that these minors who are using the educational services should not be tracked or used in anyway and if google wants to improve its advertisement experience and products then it needs to get the consent of their parents before using that information.

These Chromebooks are very popular at schools as some of them cost less than $300 and are very used for the students because it can be easily maintained by Google over the internet.

Facebook And Google Join Hands In Mobile App Search

Google and Facebook collaborate for Mobile app search.

Nothing is better when your core rival becomes your biggest ally. Alphabet Inc. is trying its best to bolster its search engine business particularly in the world of mobile apps. However, now things are different since Facebook Inc. has joined hands with the giant to push it to newer heights.

Facebook is the largest operator of social media across the globe. Recently the company allowed the search engine giant to index and crawl its mobile application as reported by a spokeswoman belonging to Google.

As per the agreement, the results that will be obtained via Google searches on the cellular devices will have the ability to showcase exclusive content from the application of Facebook encompassing the public profile data. These searches will show as “deep links” that will navigate the user to the part of the app which is relevant reported the spokeswoman.

This is a mirroring of how Google will index the information obtained from the Facebook profiles that are public over the Internet. Moreover, the company will also get access to the business platform of FB like Events, Groups and Pages.

Google has been restricted to display the shared content that is via private or logged in session. This clearly means that the tech giant can only get its hands on the public content and is catually restricted from going close to the secure content. In case the users want those searches then they will have to use Facebook’s search platform to achieve that data.

At this point of time, it is actually a major breakthrough since the cooperation by Google is a sign that the company is making ways to cope up with a massive challenge which is searching the insides of an app. Google, is the uncrowned king in the world of search engine on the web but it still faces immense difficulty when it comes to categorizing the data inside the app. It is important to get hands on this data as mobile users spend a great chunk on this platform.

Google now needs to motivate the app developers to peep inside their apps.

According to the Co-founder of Button- a mobile app discover startup, “In mobile their position as the online starting point is at risk.” He further added, “If people lose faith that they will find things they need by searching on Google, that’s bad for the company. Anything Google can do to maintain that position is good.”

So the alliance between the two tech giants is actually fruitful.