Turnitin’s less than cool tactics (and another reason to read those notes sent home from school)

From the blog Framed comes this entry, “Don’t Turnitin: Annotated Bibliography:”

Late last year, the company (Turnitin) attempted to induce high school students–minors, mostly–to assent to a new and draconian user agreement by clicking through a document that appeared when one logged in to Turnitin. Turnitin attempted to induce students to agree to its terms without even notifying the school district or the parents of children in the school. This step caused the school to temporarily suspend the service.

Now, however, the school has sent home a form for parents to sign authorizing their children to click through and assent to the Turnitin contract. Unfortunately, the school did not tell parents anything about the content of the agreement they were supposed to authorize their children to assent to.

The blogger in question, James Trumm, also includes a handy bibliography that sums up the problems of Turnitin. But these tactics are pretty dang low if you ask me.