ZapMe Corp., a company that provides free computers and Internet Access to about 1,400 schools across the nation, has recently come under fire for commercializing the 'Net and violating students' privacy.
ZapMe gives K-12 schools up to 15 Pentium III-based computers running WinNT, 17″ monitors, an Internet server, a laser printer for every 5 machines, and a “broadband” satellite dish for Internet access to the ZapMe! Network (a $90,000 value according to ZapMe). This network has around 16,000 pre-selected websites accessed through a special interface that shows ads. The ZapMe! network also allows students to do research, send e-mail, chat electronically, play games, and do classroom work. Parents can “keep in touch and stay involved” with their children's classes and homework by using “electronic mail, voice mail, personal planning applications and message boards.”
ZapMe content is filtered and sites are selected by specially staffed “editorial” boards that take suggestions from schools and students and follow all Internet usage policies of participating schools.
So how can this be bad?
A letter of protest from anti-aggressive-advertising consumer watchdog Commercial Alert and 26 other groups claims that ZapMe “turns the schools and the compulsory schooling laws into a means of gaining access to a captive audience of children in order to extract market research from them and to advertise to them.”
ZapMe responds that the information it collects only identifies students' gender and school zip code. That info is used to customize content provided to individual schools, and is not sold to advertisers. However, ZapMe's CEO did refuse to rule out possible future sales of this info to marketers.
Read more here.
This is a tough one to figure out. Obviously, decent equipment and access to a high-speed network is essential for our schools, and the price tag is perfect for money-challenged schools. But is the nice equipment, great access, and filtered content worth exposing students to ads and gleaning marketing data (however limited) from them?
I am torn. I am not in favor of forcing people to browse the Web through an interface with ads and links to sponsored stores etc. etc. (sound like AOL?). But I have to support any initiative that gets real machines and real 'Net access into schools for students to use. ZapMe is filtering content and conforming to schools' Internet usage policies (I don't really endorse that concept, but understand the necessity for it in schools) in return for ways to generate revenue. Channel One has been in schools for years with a similar concept, only applied to television.
In ZapMe!'s list of “requirements,” there are some things which bother me. Schools using ZapMe! must “provide ZapMe! corporate partners with access to the system in off-hours for community education, corporate training and education, and/or testing purposes.” They must also “participate in ZapMe! take-home programs. These programs will be consistent with the educational goals of the district. The content must be approved by the district (or each individual school) prior to distribution.” Seems like these openings are ripe for sneaky exploitation by unscrupulous advertisers/marketers, and I don't like the whiff of mixing corporate America so directly with our school systems.
But overall I guess I'm in favor of ZapMe until something publicly-sponsored takes its place. It's silly to expect that students can browse the Web without being exposed to advertising and sneaky info grabs by marketers. Most sites (including Geek.com) have ads and sponsored links on them, and anyone with an e-mail account is exposed to ads, surveys, and surreptitious info gathering. And while most people who are exposed to these ads are doing it voluntarily and the anti-ZapMe folks are justly concerned over forcing students in school to be exposed to ads through a single mandated interface, teachers and parents should be able to give students the proper perspective on what to use the Internet for.
I'm barely scraping the iceberg of the issues involved here, so why not tell me what you think in our Message Parlor for a better discussion forum.