“The News at Nine.”
Ash wasn’t behind the anchor’s desk, and she wasn’t in the studio, but she’d never been so nervous for The News at Nine.
For the three hundred students and staff members at Johns Dos Passos Elementary, this was an ordinary episode so far. They stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and listened to the birthday report and chuckled at the knock-knock joke of the week. They had no idea what was coming next.
“And now,” Harry said, “a special report about our sponsor, Baltimore-based Van Ness Media. This story was investigated by John Dos Passos sixth graders and former News at Nine crew members, Ashley Simon-Hockheimer and Maya Joshi-Zachariah, with editing by The News at Nine director, Brielle Diamond. They brought this story to The News at Nine because they thought it was important that we know what’s happening in our school.”
Mr. Brooks and everyone in the class turned to look at Ash and Maya. Maya hid her head in her hands. Ash kept her face pointed toward the screen. She knew that down the hall, in the studio, Brielle was saying, “The Underground News episode in three . . . two . . .”
And there it was, on the screen. Broadcast live into every classroom for every student and every teacher. Later today, it’d be available in the school online portal for any parents or former students who wanted to watch. It’d also be on The Underground News YouTube channel for anyone else in the world to see. Her story. Her friends’ hard work. Their news. Breaking.
THE UNDERGROUND NEWS, EPISODE 4
REPORTER: Ashley Simon-Hockheimer
VIDEOGRAPHER: Maya Joshi-Zachariah
EDITOR: Brielle Diamond
SLUG: Van Ness Media
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: Coming up: Shocking news about the fastest-growing educational software company in the country. We’re the Renegade Reporters, and you’re watching The Underground News.
VIDEO
Intro and Credits
AUDIO
NONE
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: If you’re a kid, chances are you’ve used Van Ness Media software. Maybe you’ve drawn something in Van Ness Art Studio, or written an essay in Van Ness Writer. Van Ness Media sponsors my school’s morning announcements show, The News at Nine, which means they provide the software and all the equipment. And until recently, this very show, The Underground News, was edited using Van Ness Movie Maker.
VIDEO
Ext. of Van Ness Media Headquarters
AUDIO
ANC: Van Ness Media is based here in Baltimore, but the company is growing and growing. According to the founder and chief executive officer, Maria Van Ness, they have contracts with more than five thousand school districts across the United States, which means more than ten million kids in three hundred thousand classrooms use their software.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: One of the biggest selling points for schools is privacy. Unlike many other applications, Van Ness Media doesn’t allow any advertising inside their software. But that doesn’t mean students’ personal information is kept private. In fact, The Underground News discovered that Van Ness Media is keeping detailed profiles on all of its users, including location data, and giving that information to advertisers . . . and maybe to others as well.
VIDEO
Corey Fox in his Office
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: To get some background, the Renegade Reporters spoke with Corey Fox, a law professor at the University of Baltimore. He specializes in online privacy.
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox in Office
AUDIO
COREY FOX: The internet is an amazing thing. It lets us find information, go shopping, watch videos, connect with friends, and lots of other things, most of them for free, yeah? But every time you and I do any of those things, we leave a trail of information, called a digital fingerprint. It’s kind of like your physical fingerprint, because it’s unique to you.
Companies are collecting that information. They keep track of what you and I search for, and what we buy, and, through the GPS on our phones, where we go in real life. If you put all that information together, you can make a very detailed picture of who each user is. That’s valuable information.
ANC: What do you mean by valuable?
COREY FOX: Well, I mean a few things. But to start with, it’s valuable in a literal sense. It’s worth a lot of money.
ANC: Why?
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox in Office cont.
AUDIO
COREY FOX: A lot of reasons. But a big one is advertising. Let’s say you look at something online—a book, or a pair of jeans, or the cost of flights to . . . Jamaica. Then you open up the Facebook app. Chances are you’ll see ads for that book, or those jeans, or maybe hotels in Jamaica. That’s because companies are working together. They’re taking information about you and selling it to advertisers.
VIDEO
Footage of Van Ness Media Software
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: Van Ness Media knows that parents and schools don’t really want kids exposed to advertising. So they don’t allow any advertising in their software. This is a major selling point for their company, and CEO Maria Van Ness mentions it in interviews all the time.
VIDEO
Clip of Maria Van Ness on CNN
AUDIO
MARIA VAN NESS: Van Ness Media products are proudly free of advertising. We aim to make money by selling software, not our customers’ attention spans. That’s important to schools, and rightfully so. Our commitment to having zero advertising within our products sets us apart, and it’s helped us grow.
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox
AUDIO
ANC: Let’s say certain software doesn’t have any advertising in it. Like, its users don’t see any ads while they’re using it. Does that mean any information the users put into that software is private, and it won’t be used for advertising?
COREY FOX: No, not necessarily. The company that makes the software might still be collecting information about its users and building detailed profiles about them. If the company gives or sells those profiles to someone else, the users might see targeted advertising on a different website, or in a different app.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: Van Ness Media doesn’t allow anyone to advertise to their users inside their software. But could they be giving away their users’ personal information for advertising in other places? In order to find out, The Underground News decided to do a test. We created a fake person named Jacob Brown, and we signed him up for a Van Ness Media account.
VIDEO
Anchor in Brielle’s Room
AUDIO
ANC: We’re creating our fake Van Ness Media account on this laptop. It was completely reformatted, so there’s no personal information on it. In order to make sure ads aren’t targeted using old searches, we’re using a new browser that’s never been used on this computer. As an extra precaution, we cleared the cookies.
Here’s the welcome screen: New users click here. It’s a good thing they offer new users a one-week free trial. We don’t have much of a budget here at The Underground News.
All set. Twelve-year-old Jacob Brown is ready to use the full suite of Van Ness Media software.
VIDEO
Planet Pizza Newsletter
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: We decided to give our fake user some very specific interests: space and pizza. We filled his Van Ness Media account with information about those two things and only those t
wo things. We were careful not to put information about him anywhere else on the internet, so that advertisers could only get this information from Van Ness Media.
They claim that they care about their users’ privacy. But will Van Ness Media actually keep Jacob Brown’s information private?
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC on camera: One day has passed, and it’s time to check Jacob Brown’s email account.
VIDEO
Laptop on Screen
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: Remember his interests, which only Van Ness Media could know? Look at the ads that appeared in his email inbox the very next day. Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut, and the planetarium.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: This is Ashley Simon-Hockheimer with proof that nothing you do in Van Ness Media software is private.
VIDEO
Anchor in Inner Harbor
AUDIO
ANC: We decided to talk to some kids to see how they feel about the idea of their personal information being shared with advertisers without their knowledge.
VIDEO
Anchor with Boy #1
AUDIO
ANC: Do you use Van Ness Media at school?
BOY 1: Oh yeah. I’m working on a presentation about the American West.
ANC: Who do you think can see what you put in that presentation?
BOY 1: Um. Just me? Unless I show it to my parents or something so they can help. And my teacher too, but not till I’m done.
ANC: What if I told you that Van Ness Media was taking all the information you put in that project and giving it to outside companies so they can show you ads. And maybe making money from it. And if you open their apps on your phone, they are keeping track of your location.
BOY 1: Um. I don’t know. That’d be kind of weird.
VIDEO
Girl #1 in Harbor
AUDIO
GIRL 1: Like, they’re looking at my homework? And they know where I go in real life?
VIDEO
Teenager #1 in Harbor
AUDIO
TEENAGER 1: I don’t really care. I mean, it’s not like my art project is top secret. I don’t have anything to hide.
VIDEO
Girl #2 in Harbor
AUDIO
GIRL 2: That’s creepy. I’d definitely think more about what I put in there, if I know someone else is seeing it. And why’s it their business where I go?
VIDEO
Boy #2 in Harbor
AUDIO
BOY 2: You mean someone’s paying money to read my book report? Why aren’t I getting that money, if I wrote the thing?
VIDEO
Mom in Harbor
AUDIO
MOM: I would not be happy about that. The school is supposed to keep our kids’ information private. These are children we’re talking about.
VIDEO
Grandma in Harbor
AUDIO
GRANDMA: No, no, no. I don’t think schools would allow that. They can’t use photos of children for as little as a school newsletter without parents signing a permission slip. So they wouldn’t let my grandbabies’ work and location be shared with just anyone. Not without letting us know and asking permission.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: She raised a good point about permission. In order to use Van Ness Media, our fake user, Jacob Brown, had to have a parent or guardian agree to the terms and conditions and the privacy policy. But what, exactly, was he agreeing to?
VIDEO
Privacy Policy
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: “In respect of processing of Personal Data detailed in this Privacy Policy, such processing is necessary for the purposes of a legitimate interest pursued by Van Ness Media, and we have assessed that such interests are not overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the persons to whom the Personal Data relates.”
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: Huh?
VIDEO
Corey Fox in Office
AUDIO
COREY FOX: Yes, we all agree to terms of service, and websites have to share their privacy policies. But does anyone read them, let alone understand what they’re agreeing to? These documents are dozens of pages long, with tiny print, and filled with complicated legal jargon. We’re often signing away all our rights, without even knowing it.
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox
AUDIO
ANC: If it’s software kids use at school, who agrees to the terms and reviews the privacy policy?
COREY FOX: Whoever approves the use of the software in the school. If a certain software company has a contract with a school system, someone from the school or the district would most likely grant permission on behalf of all the students.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: I asked the principal of my school who agreed to the terms and conditions. It wasn’t him, and he didn’t know who it was, because all of Baltimore City Public Schools has a contract with Van Ness Media. The Underground News tried to talk to someone at the district headquarters, but no one returned our phone calls or emails.
So, we still don’t know who’s granting permission for Van Ness Media to access Baltimore City Public Schools’ students’ personal information and creations. But we do know one thing: Van Ness Media is hungry for more.
VIDEO
Maria Van Ness Announcement
AUDIO
MARIA VAN NESS: I am excited to announce the newest addition to the Van Ness Media suite of products: Van Ness Dream Journal. This is an app for brainstorming, daydreaming, and doodling. A place for ideas that are still germinating, and not yet ready to be shared.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: Not yet ready to be shared. Except that Van Ness Media is able to share it with anyone they want.
We asked Van Ness Media about that very question. Their response?
VIDEO
Email from Van Ness Media Public Relations
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: “Van Ness Media proudly offers advertising-free software for educational use. The full details of our user agreement and privacy policy are available on our website.”
They’re referring to the same long, wordy agreement we looked at before. The one no one at my school knew anything about or personally agreed to.
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox
AUDIO
ANC: What about people who say they don’t really care about their digital fingerprints? That they have nothing to hide?
COREY FOX: There are trade-offs, right? Because we certainly get things out of the deal. Directions, discounts, relevant information. But most people don’t really understand what they’re giving away in exchange. That there are companies out there that know more about you than you may know yourself.
It’s one thing if it’s just used for advertising, okay, to manipulate you into buying something. But what if the information is used in a different way? What if companies try to make you vote for a particular person, or not vote at all? What if you can’t get health insurance because you once did some internet searches about cancer? What if you’re arrested because you were in a certain place around the time a crime occurred?
VIDEO
Anchor with Corey Fox cont.
AUDIO
You may think you don’t need privacy if you hav
e nothing to hide, but there’s a reason companies compile and pay big money for information about all of us. They wouldn’t do it if it weren’t valuable.
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: What if companies use it to try and stop users from doing things they don’t like?
When The Underground News started working on this story, we were editing it in Van Ness Movie Maker. That meant Van Ness Media knew everything we were putting in our report.
VIDEO
Error Message on Screen
AUDIO
ANC voiceover: And suddenly, every member of our team got locked out of the software with an error message like this. Here’s our own video editor talking about it.
VIDEO
Brielle by her Computer
AUDIO
BRIELLE: According to Van Ness Media, we were kicked out because we violated the terms of service. They set the rules, and I guess the rules say their business gets to stay private? So I finished editing this episode using Final Cut Pro, and it’s so much better than Van Ness Movie Maker!
VIDEO
Anchor on Camera
AUDIO
ANC: Van Ness Media claims to care about its users’ privacy. Here’s a clip of Maria Van Ness being interviewed on CNN just last month.
VIDEO
Maria Van Ness on CNN
AUDIO
MARIA VAN NESS: We are targeting the education market—kids ages three through eighteen—which means we have an extra responsibility to protect our users. Sure, there’s free software available. But it’s not really free. It’s being paid for by advertising, which means users are being constantly bombarded by ads, whether they realize it or not. And not realizing it is when it’s most harmful, especially to children.
The Renegade Reporters Page 14