Google stops searching student emails

Google will stop searching emails from its 30 million students with student accounts. Google has also permanently removed the function for administrators to turn ads on and off in Google’s educational apps.

Google is announcing the changes on its official Enterprise blog. Ads were disabled by default, but could be enabled by administrators. Due to Wednesday’s update, the Apps for Education service will under no circumstances contain advertising.

In addition, Google will stop scanning students’ emails. In the past, this also happened when advertisements were turned off, in order to enable advertisements on other sites.

Google’s educational apps allowed universities, among others, to use Gmail to host mail. Not everyone was happy about that; There was a riot at the University of Groningen because the university wanted to use Gmail.