February 2nd, 2000
Criticism for Company Offering Free Computers to Schools
By Pamela Mendels
New York Times
ZapMe Corp., a company that gives free computers to schools and sells advertising
on their screens, is facing an attack from a broad coalition of advocates for
children and other groups that object to the ads and the company’s collection
of data from students.
The coalition sent a letter last month to governors in all 50 states and the
heads of education committees in state legislatures.
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," the group wrote. "Parents
entrust their children to the schools—especially public schools—for the
purpose of learning and developing character, not to serve as guinea pigs for
advertising and marketing firms."
The letter was written largely by Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert,
a Washington-based group founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader that opposes
aggressive advertising practices. It was signed by 26 others, including Shari
Steele, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which campaigns for
civil liberties online; Kathryn C. Montgomery, president of the Center for Media
Education, a children’s media advocacy organization in Washington, and Donald
E. Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, a Christian media
watchdog group based in Tupelo, Miss.
The letter comes at a time when educators and advocates for children are expressing
concern over a number of commercial ventures in schools, including Channel One,
which offers television equipment in exchange for the right to show commercials
to students, and exclusive contracts between schools and soft-drink sellers.
By pioneering the idea of Internet advertising targeted to students using free
equipment, ZapMe has spread this debate to the online world.
Rick Inatome, president and chief executive of ZapMe, which is based in San
Ramone, Calif., refuted the group’s criticisms. He said ZapMe provides schools,
especially those that may not be able to afford sophisticated equipment on their
own, with a way to access quality educational content on the Web while avoiding
the flashier advertising and more intrusive data collection found elsewhere
on the Internet.
"We are dealing with the number one issue: how to deal with the ‘digital
divide’" while letting schools offer safe Internet access, he said in an
interview this week.
ZapMe computers are now installed in about 1,400 middle schools and high schools,
both public and private, in most states, Inatome said. Schools can choose among
several different plans, but in most cases, the company provides them with a
free computer lab with five to 15 personal computers, a satellite dish, software
and other equipment. A lab with 15 computers would ordinarily cost about $90,000,
he said.
Schools can also chose to have their students reach the Internet only through
the filtered ZapMe network, which blocks inappropriate material and offers access
to about 16,000 Web sites selected for their educational quality.
In return for the equipment and services, students view the Web through the
ZapMe interface, a frame that includes what the company calls a "sponsorship
window" in the lower left corner of the computer screen.
Critics say that this amounts to making school children a captive audience
for advertisers.
"It’s completely improper to insert a commercial venture into the nation’s
classrooms, because the purpose of that enterprise is to expose kids to a lot
of commercial propaganda, another word for advertising," said Mark Crispin
Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University and one of the signers
of the letter. "The purposes of advertising and the purposes of education
are mutually antithetical."
The letter signers also object to the fact that ZapMe collects certain information
from its young users that they say might be valuable to marketers. "Schools
should not be an electronic focus group," said Montgomery of the Center
for Media Education. At a minimum, adds Steele of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
parents should be given the chance to say that they do not want their children
to use the free computers.
Inatome responds that the company does not collect information that can identify
individual students, only their gender and school zip code. The information
is used in aggregate, he said, to help the company customize its offerings so
that, for example, a school in northern California would receive different weather
information than a school in New York. The collected information has not been
shared with marketers thus far, he said, but he did not rule out the possibility.
If it is shared, no identifying details would be disclosed, he said.
Inatome asserted that ZapMe actually provides its users with greater privacy
protection than most Internet service providers can guarantee. "We think
we are the highest standard available if a school wants to choose Internet access,"
he said.
One thing that Inatome and at least some of his critics agree on is that the
increasing commercialization of the Web could overwhelm its educational promise.
But Montgomery said the solution is not to bring commercial ventures into schools.
Rather, she argues that it is up to teachers to oversee their students’ school
Internet use and steer them away from advertising.
"It’s true there’s a lot of commercialization on the Web, and I think
schools have to be concerned about it," she said. "Teachers are going
to have to direct students in navigating the Web and using it for its really
wonderful educational purpose, and not to be seduced into an electronic shopping
mall."