Schools using google services/requiring students to use them

I have a friend who goes to college at a university in SC and for one of his Computer Science courses, they require that he makes a google account and to use their services during the class. He feels that even doing school work with it, they are invading his privacy. It's not uncommon for schools to require students to have maybe an email address or something but forcing them to use a google account just for a course seems almost unlawful to me if the individual feels their rights being violated. Is it possible for him to take legal action against the university?

If the Google account stuff is listed in the syllabus he can't do anything about it. 99.99% of classes will have a syllabus available on the first day (or before), and since he got it within the add/drop period he had plenty of chances to drop the class (aka, he had plenty of warning). If the syllabus didn't say anything about then he can challenge it with the instructor/head of the department. Give them a reasonable excuse with citations/sources and they'll probably figure something out. If they don't then start making a fuss over it. There's no reason to be a princess and start suing before actually trying to fix the problem.

as a highschool student who is testing out the telepresense program.... we use chromebooks but we dont use any google services except the local document editor... lets just say that i would love to have lots of more classes like that.

Don't the Google services that are used for education have different TOS, than there commercial services?

I could be wrong but the universities pay a fee to use google services and therefore Google doesn't use the data for targeted advertising. I know the undergraduates at my university use google for email, I will have to look into how it works.

Tell him to get over it .. A computer science student should know how to make 2 accounts

:)

just be happy there's one standard .. My school for one class went from hot mail to yahoo to drop box to Google docs to a few others.... 

from the way OP described it though, his friends uni doesnt provide google services but rather the class is requiring he setup a personal (commercial) account and use that for school work. i know at my uni we are under the google education services so if this was me, it would all just run over that account and not be a big deal. OP should have his friend talk to the IT/Computing Services/whatever they call it people and find out if they are part of google's educational programs.

also OP, if your friend is in uni and doesnt have a campus provided email, then he should drop out and run the other way.

Actually, my science teacher over here is making all of us register on multiple websites, I haven't complained about it yet, but am currently thinking about it.

It's pretty sad actually; I register on one for my math teacher, 3 (4 in some of her cores) for my science class, and most likely more next semester.

I'm sure if I complain I could make it stop being forced on us, but it would be so much of a trouble, and most students don't even care.

there are some tools we have to use for classes at my uni as well. things like mathxl for most math classes homework. but that has been about it. classes that force you to have accounts that are useless outside of that one class should be challenged. things like mathxl are useful for more than one math class.

Yeah we actually use mathxl over here too. They also make us register on others like newsela, social networking sites (for school), and more. It's pretty stupid if you ask me.

Everyone's .edu email at my school is through gmail.  which is roughly 30,000 people between grad/undergrad.

At least you are using Google, which is sorted form a usability standpoint and not what I think is the worst implementation of Microsoft junk I have ever seen, at the school I am working in. 

It is so bad that most of the teachers on the sly use chrome and dropbox to avoid the time wasting and confusion with the Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook, Insert other name here products which seem completely oblivious to the existence of each other. make syncing and general getting around annoying, logging in three separate times for "connected technology solutions" services on the same laptop...