Puzzle

We have created a Piazza page for this class; the URL is:

This is not an official class web site. “The UC Office of the President strategic sourcing team is looking into establishing a system-wide agreement for the use of Piazza within campus LMSs.” (Source: https://movetocanvas.ucdavis.edu/lti-tool/piazza/)

The issue is that Piazza sells your data, unanonymized, to corporate recruiters. This includes names, email addresses, courses taken based on your Piazza usage, and information about your networking on Piazza. You can opt out if you like; when you sign up, there’s a box that gives them permission to do this, and it’s checked, so just uncheck it to deny them this permission.

1. Why does Piazza do this?
2. Why do many universities consider Piazza’s sale of student information unacceptable?
3. If Piazza posted information about what leaving the box checked allows them to do with your information, would that be acceptable?
4. What is the simplest and most effective way for Piazza to eliminate this problem, while allowing it to sell information to recruiters?

Matt Bishop Office: 2209 Watershed Sciences Phone: +1 (530) 752-8060 Email: mabishop@ucdavis.edu

ECS 153, Computer Security Version of April 24, 2018 at 10:27PM

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