Needless to say, our complaint garnered quite a bit of attention—including that of Senator Al Franken, who sent Google a letter asking some detailed questions about its privacy practices. As part of its answer, Google for the first time explicitly stated that even though they do collect information on students’ use of non-GAFE services, they treat that information as “student personal information” and do not use it to target ads.
Additionally, after we filed our complaint, Google published a new GAFE “privacy notice” (which Google is now calling “G Suite for Education”). The webpage was subsequently updated at least couple times this year and currently states, “For Apps for Education users in primary and secondary (K-12) schools, Google does not use any user personal information (or any information associated with an Apps for Education Account) to target ads, whether in Core Services or other Google services accessed while using an Apps for Education account.” 1