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Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

tutanota.com

31–40 of 214 posts

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#31
How concretely-grounded are these privacy concerns?

I know we all love to hate Google, but my impression is they take the privacy of email extremely seriously at this point (eg, no longer using it for ads).

Sure, I don't trust Google that much and I know others trust their brand even less, but is there hard evidence of misuse of Gmail user data?

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#32
post #12
post #2

Now let's ban MSFT Office365 too. It's of zero use to teach whatever to the kids.

I'd have to disagree here. Teaching kids how to use Word and Excel will help them for the majority of office jobs out there.

However Denmark has a long history of being heavy into MS and being abused by the company, so I would like to see it ditched, which the way Denmark works is once you lose 50%, another 46% will jump on board with what that 50% are doing, so I'm just looking forward to Denmark as a Microsoft free country.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#33
post #6

I've been thinking of ditching Gmail for myself and my business, but what true alternatives are there? I already have O365, but am not particular keen on using Exchange. I'm basically only using Gmail and Calendar. Any e-mail providers based out of the EU, worth mentioning?

I've had good luck with Tutanota. It's based out of Germany, and one of the few big providers that doesn't require your phone number to sign up.

https://tutanota.com

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#35
I'm under the impression that we (Denmark) are pretty random in what we think is important about privacy and IT security.. These ideas were probably strongly influenced by lobbyists from the main IT service providers, which are privately owned, and yet runs a large amount of out infrastructure. It'd be very much in their interest to have the goverment order some bespoke, insanely complicated/delayed/expensive system to be made.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#36
post #6

I've been thinking of ditching Gmail for myself and my business, but what true alternatives are there? I already have O365, but am not particular keen on using Exchange. I'm basically only using Gmail and Calendar. Any e-mail providers based out of the EU, worth mentioning?

posteo.de

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#37
post #12
post #2

Now let's ban MSFT Office365 too. It's of zero use to teach whatever to the kids.

I'd have to disagree here. Teaching kids how to use Word and Excel will help them for the majority of office jobs out there.

You mean vendor lock in is going to reinforce the existing monopoly. Good thinking there to get kids as early as possible

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of open source options that will teach them 90% of what most people will need to know. Taxpayer money should not be going to these corporations.

Nothing really compares to Excel. (Nothing really compares to Excel in some of its most terrible bugs either).

That’s true in the same way that it’s true of Visual Studio, but how many people really need all that functionality in their job?

I’m sure there are some genuine Excel experts out there doing important work but I’ve got to assume most of what’s being done is formulas, charts and pivot tables.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#39
post #31

How concretely-grounded are these privacy concerns? I know we all love to hate Google, but my impression is they take the privacy of email extremely seriously at this point (eg, no longer using it for ads). Sure, I don't trust Google that much and I know others trust their brand even less, but is there hard evidence of misuse of Gmail user data?

Google has lost the PR war in Europe they are now a political punching bag there. Practically Gmail is probably one of the best choices for privacy with a good track record including attempted breach by China playing a role in their exiting the country. But in principle Google as an ad company will never be acceptable to those who want privacy to be more valued

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#40

This is basically European protectionism under the guise of privacy. My guess is that within a few years (or even sooner), you will be reading about a massive breach of student data from whatever alternative they choose to go with.

> This is basically European protectionism under the guise of privacy.

if if it's just that, it's pretty easy to solve, don't you think so? The EU is leading on privacy, no doubt, or better: the EU is (finally, and really a bit too late) doing something while, afaik, the US is almost doing nothing (except for CA).

I hope the EU is able to slowly write down easy to implement rules other countries can just cut & paste

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