Nine individuals that represented Washington-based advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a lawsuit against search engine company giant Google Inc over violations of federal and state wiretap laws. According to the International Business Times report, the plaintiffs are seeking group status to force Google to be more transparent with collecting data, aside from seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The lawsuit had claimed that Google allegedly scanned emails sent and received by students who use Apps for Education and use the information it has obtained to draw up user profiles and perform target advertising schemes. IBTimes said two of the plaintiffs are university students Robert Fread and Rafael Carillo.
Education Week has said in an article that the case could set precedent to the interpretations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. IBTimes said that the Google Apps for Education, which is a suite of productivity apps made free for students, are featured on Google's Chromebooks, which are popular in public schools.
On the other hand, Google had acknowledged that the company, do indeed, scan emails and indexes them for various purposes aside from advertising, of which some of them aid the company in carrying out certain features of their Gmail service, like filtering spam mails and marking important emails. Google said that in this case, the information it obtains from screening emails is not used to ad-targeting Apps for Education users unless they opt for this service.
Google Apps for Education director Bram Bout told Education Week, "Ads in Gmail are turned off by default for Google Apps for Education, and we have no plans to change that in the future."
Lawyer Khaliah Barnes with the Electronic Privacy Information Center said that this line of reasoning to the company's practice is unacceptable. "This should draw the attention of the U.S. Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission, and state legislatures. Student privacy is under attack."
