Google: friend or foe?
By Kendra Martinez, Staff Writer
As we all know, Google is the foundation for our schoolwork, especially now that we are in distance learning. From teachers assigning work on Google Classroom to students creating graphs on Google Sheets, we use Google basically everyday. We put our trust into these apps and expect our information to be safe. But, should SMMUSD really rely on this company with all of our information? Google could easily sell our personal and school data or use our documents to gain information about us or the district. Even with the privacy agreement the district signed with Google, it should be concerning that one single company owns the majority of our school work and has control over most of our resources.
Many students subconsciously use Google without a second thought. Students click “accept” to the terms and conditions without actually reading them. Some students will use Google Docs or Gmail to communicate with their friends and Google has access to all those private conversations. Yet, there is not much of a choice, seeing as Google does have a strong monopoly on the internet. There are other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo, but they do not have as much information as Google. In fact, Google is currently battling one of the biggest antitrust lawsuits with the Justice Department. They have been accused of monopolizing the internet and paying other companies to prioritize Google over any of their competitors. Google also has control of what websites appear when we search for something. Seeing as they want to profit as much as possible, Google will show various ad websites as the top search results when you look something up. This makes it very difficult to find unbiased resources when doing schoolwork. Students working on research papers often require a counter argument, but finding that counter argument can be very difficult when it is an unpopular opinion. This obviously can cause a conflict for students doing research.
Earlier this year, a school district in New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Google claiming it used its educational services (i.e. Google Classroom and Google Docs) to spy on students and staff. This was not the first lawsuit of this nature to be filed against Google. There was a similar one in 2018. These lawsuits further the questions about Google’s safety. Schools would not be making these claims if they didn’t have reason to believe they were true. Technology is the basis of today’s world and there are already enough concerns that come with it. Google should be trying to lessen people’s worries, but instead they are fueling them. Now, parents have to worry that their children are being spied on by a company who can easily share their information.
Obviously, we cannot simply change the entire basis of our work overnight. But, we should be keeping in mind the safety of our work and information. Trying to find other alternatives might be difficult for the reasons stated above. Safari and Yahoo would be the search engines most similar to Google and using them for work might be safer. However, they are a little bit less accessible and not as convenient as Google. Google is notable for its simplicity and that is the main reason why it is used by many schools around the country. Additionally, it is very easy to access and navigate Google, making it easy to use for everyone. Maybe that simplicity and convenience is what blindsides us from seeing the dangers Google poses.