School Districts Part Of Network Working With Google To Collect Information
Let me just start by saying I love the internet. It allows me to connect to friends and family who live far away. It allows me to share ideas on a plethora of social networks like Pinterest and Facebook. I can use the internet to look up answers to almost any question I have. I am not against the internet. It is a useful tool. But any tool can be misused and people should be educated on the dangers of using a tool so that they can get the maximum benefit from it with the least risk.
The internet consists of several tools linked together to provide an overall product and service. First there is the access device: computer, tablet, phone, laptop etc. Then there is the signal transport, most often fiber optic cable, occasionally cell towers and even less frequent satellite signal. That infrastructure also includes things like servers and gateways. Lastly there is the software that organizes what I see on my screen, sends my typed text to specific users and lets all the different devices talk to each other by constantly converting and interpreting binary code to create words I can read or pictures I can see. The reason I am giving all this dry description will become apparent shortly.
This world wide web of devices, cabling and software for commercial use was created in the late 80′s and early 90′s. It’s original purpose was to allow researchers to communicate with each other. That is still a major use of the internet today. A little more history, if you will indulge me.
Vinton (Vint) Cerf is considered one of the fathers of the internet. He was working for DARPA on the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) in the late 60′s tat would be used to transmit data from one researchers input device to another’s. Later, he became Vice President of MCI Digital Information Services who created the first commercial email service to be connected to the www in the mid 80′s.
In 1992 Cerf and Bob Kahn co-founded the Internet Society to provide leadership in education, policy, and standards related to the Internet. One of the stated missions of the Internet Society is “Championing public policies that enable open access.” They “establish and promote principles that are intended to persuade governments to make decisions that are right for their citizens and each nation’s future. Everything we do is based on ensuring that a healthy, sustainable Internet is available to everyone.” Clearly Cerf saw the benefit to his creation and wanted to make sure everyone could use it. He was also a big proponent of open access which includes access to data. That is the way researchers think. My dad was one for 40 years so I have some idea.
Jump forward a couple decades where data giant Google is out there bringing Cerf’s vision to fruition. They supply a host of internet services for “free” giving as many people as possible access to the wonders of the internet. I have to put that in quotes because we all know nothing is really for free, and the recent court case against Google is exposing what the costs of their free services are.
Thomas R. Burke and Jonathan Segal of Davis Wright Tremaine represented several media companies in the a suit filed against Google for their policy of collecting data from Google services like Gmail without the express permission or even knowledge of the users. They explained in aUSAToday op ed piece,
“Back in 2010, Google was facing a vexing problem. It was losing out on a treasure trove of personal information from millions of Gmail users who were slipping through its chief analytical tool, known as “Content OneBox.” Anytime they accessed their email through Outlook or on their iPhone, Google’s data machine wasn’t there to capture it all. So it needed a way to sidestep the problem.
Within a matter of months, the company shrewdly moved the Content OneBox from Gmail’s storage area to the “delivery pipeline” — meaning that it could now scan messages before they were received.”
This could be justified as Google’s way of dealing with spam. How could something be sent to your spam folder before you read it unless Google had been reading it first? But Google was already on record in 2011 saying they would “begin building a profile about you based on all of your emails. It’s this profile that will then be used to deliver advertising to you.” This was never just about spam.
Chris Hoofnagle, director of privacy programs at Berkeley’s Center for Law & Technology explained the trouble with Google’s reasoning like this.
“The content one box infrastructure would allow Google to understand the meaning of all of our communications: the identities of the people with whom we collaborate, the compounds of drugs we are testing, the next big thing we are inventing, etc. Imagine the creative product of School Districts Part Of Network Working With Google To Collect Information | Missouri Education Watchdog: