--- TIC-TECH message:
While the recent efforts by many to rid the Seattle Schools of the Web
banner ads that have graced the monitors of your computers for almost a
year have been successful, the effort to rid your school of these
insidious attempts to directly market to your students will not stop any
time soon.
This post by Nancy Willard is instructive because it serves as a warning
to those who might be attracted to the potential gold mine that is
represented by captive kids (and their "eyeballs"). 'nough said.
Kurt Sahl
bluesky@scn.org
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 16:12:54 -0800
From: Nancy Willard <nwillard@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
To: WWWEDU@LISTS.LIGHTSPAN.COM
Subject: [WWWEDU] N2H2
INTERNET COMPANY DROPS DATA-SELLING PLAN
Bowing to pressure from privacy advocates, Internet filtering
company N2H2 has announced that it will no longer collect or sell
data on the Web-surfing habits of students who use its filtering
technology. Some 14 million U.S. students use N2H2's filter,
known as "Bess." N2H2 used the filters as part of a plan to
compile and sell lists of data about students' surfing habits.
It became known in September that marketing company Roper
Starch would be a partner in the plan and that the Defense
Department would buy the data. An N2H2 spokesman said that the
company never collected or sold personally identifiable data
about the students. "We never would, never have, and never will
jeopardize anyone's privacy," said the spokesman. The Defense
Department said that it is reviewing its decision to participate
with N2H2's data-collection scheme.
(Associated Press, 22 February 2001)
Having been the instigator of the first two articles on N2H2's practice
(NY Times and Tampa Tribume), I feel some satisfication that N2H2 has
anow recognized that selling student use data to assist advertisers get
to captive kids in school is not an appropriate business activity. (duh!)
I recently attended the COSN conference where N2H2 had a tradeshow
booth. My perception, affirmed by the salespeople at a nearby booth, was
that educators were specifically avoiding the N2H2 booth. More than one
educator confirmed to me that they felt the company had violated their
trust.
It is my sincere hope that the demise of Zapme and the response of
educators to the actions of N2H2 signal an end to the B-to-E business
model that is based on the perception that the Internet in schools can
be used as a stealth portal to capture the eyeballs and e-wallets of
captive kids and their parents.
Nancy
-- Nancy Willard Project Director, Responsible Netizen Center for Advanced Technology in Education College of Education, 5214 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403-5214 541-346-2895 (office) 541-346-6226 (fax) Web Page: http://netizen.uoregon.edu E-mail: nwillard@oregon.uoregon.edu- End TIC-TECH message. To join, leave, or visit the message archive, go to Tic-Tech on the Web: http://fp.seattleschools.org/fpclass/tic-tech/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 27 2001 - 09:15:49 PST