Google gives back privacy to students.

Google claims they have stopped scanning students’ emails following a lawsuit filed by California students last year. The legal battle began this March and came to a speedy conclusion. After claiming that Google violated federal and state privacy laws, which was tied to FERPA, they have lost the battle. Google rep claims that,

“…the company scans and indexes emails from all Apps for Education users. The company uses the data for potential advertising, among other purposes.”

In addition to the FERPA argument many advocacy groups point out is, “that even if Gmail users agree to Google’s terms, that doesn’t mean that non-subscribers who email with them do.” These arguments and general fuss has resulted in Google ending their data mining. It will be interested to see if they take this to a higher court or if the civil class action lawsuit have any monetary payouts. If so Mashable claims that, “If successful, that could lead to a payment to millions of Gmail users.” 

What do you think about Google’s data mining policy for those under 18? How do you feel about your email being used for data mining? Do you think that your privacy is at risk?

Read more on the initial lawsuit here