Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

The fact that the word "excel" is nowdays synonymous with "spreadsheet software" is exactly the reason why we should NOT teach kids how to use MS Excel.

There are many free implementations of spreadsheet software. Kids can get even more experience using different kinds of software, teaching them ways in which software can differ while still being able to do the same things. Ironically, this would probably make kids more skilled with MS Excel, if they were ever forced to use it.

There's no reason to teach kids MS Excel in particular, unless you think memorizing positions of buttons is a useful skill in the real world.

In my little experience the EU is rather incapable of rolling out easy to implement rules.

The EU members get all of the privacy downsides and none of the financial upside from the American behemoths hence the legislative gymnastics to find them for $N millions every quarter and now further protectionist moves.

> Oddly, Linux is hard, if not impossible, to run on many Chromebooks as root. A lot of Chromebooks only support “linux beta” (aka Crostini) as a subsystem of ChromeOS and the hardware doesn’t support running Linux as root from boot; frequently the low end models.

Does any one know the reason for this -- was there ever a good description given by someone technical on the project as to why it worked out that way? All I can imagine is malice/ill-intent and I'd like to be wrong. It just seems so unlikely that somehow it was cheaper/easier to have the hardware not boot linux.

I remember seeing the chromebook story on HN lately[0][1] and I was kind of disgusted by it. The technical aspects might be great, but completely beside the point that those machines are basically on-ramps to google's surveillance ecosystem.

I can only think of them as the hardware version of Facebook's internet.org push -- If a whole generation grows up to think that running programs is launching domains that end in google.com, who benefits? Maybe a whole new generation will have easier access to VS Code and be able to build cool new stuff, and they'll run linux in VMs/crostini or whatever, but I can't fight the nagging feeling that a bunch of people will just stick with consumption. Figuring out how to install a program was hard, but it engendered a feeling of self-determination and control. Seems like Google wants to build the WALL-E future.

All that said, in recent memory this world has also produced:

- System76

- Framework

- Pinebook

- RISCV

- Tons of SBCs that are more and more performant and can function as full blown computing devices for cheap

And Google makes huge contributions (monetary and otherwise) to open source software and hardware, organizations, and projects.

Are things good or bad? Yes, I guess.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32198762

[1]: https://mobile.twitter.com/timsneath/status/1550598445248811...

Google Workspace is free to schools. Therefore it 'costs' significantly less than running the infrastructure to service accounts for several 100's to 1000's of staff and kids using a FOSS solution. Of course, there are other email providers, but they are rarely free. They'll also still need to put security solutions in front of it, or indeed Exchange Online, because the offerings are rudimentary to say the least, but they are more solid out-of-the-box than OSS solutions and provide for a lower overall TCO and cost-to-serve. Pragmatism, where technology decisions and tax-payers money are concerned, should trump ideology every time.

Not really. It actually is about privacy.

If Google set up a subsidiary in Europe, that ran the service for european users and was the only entity that had access to the data, this would not be a problem. The problem here is Google's insistence that US entities will be allowed to access european data.