Con-Nec-Shun

I was doing some research on a post that will never probably see the light of day, namely infomercial scams. You've seen em, particularly if you're an insomniac like me. The "MAKE SO MUCH MONEY ON THE INTRAWEBZ YOU'LL BE PISSING GREY GOOSE" stuff. And mysteriously you'll see the exact same commercial at different times but with different email addresses, such as cash19.com, success54.com, omgimbleedingfrommyanus67.com, etc etc etc.

But I couldn't figure out the angle for Education Connection. You know the commercial, the one that looks like it was made for a school project by students at the ECC Broadcasting School and Mini-Storage; coupled with a jingle that cannot be removed from your brain without proficient use of a power drill.

Not to say I haven't tried.



Exactly the same as the one I saw, except it was listed as SchoolASAP.com. So I did a little digging. SchoolASAP was indeed a separate site, although all of the links directed to http://www.educationconnection.com/...blahblahblah...=1&cid=******* (that last part appears to be most likely a cookie id).

Thumbing around the ToC of the site I ran across a couple of interesting things...

"You may link to the home page of the Site as long as the link does not cast us in a false or misleading light. Please let us know if you link to the Site by contacting us at: "

"Please read this User Agreement carefully, because by visiting or using this Site, you agree to be legally bound by and comply with its terms. If you do not agree to comply with this User Agreement, you are not authorized to use the Site. "

That disclaimer always cracked me up. It always reminded me of the EULA "by reading this you submit your car, house, dog & soul to us and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."


And the true form of the beast comes out when you look at the privacy policy:

"Personal Data. When you fill out a "Student Matching Profile", our Self-Assessment, and at other times, we ask for some information about you, such as your name, age, email address, postal address, and phone number, level of education, desired level of educational program, areas of interest, current occupation, military status (if any), governmental loan status. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13."

"Anonymous Data. We automatically collect IP addresses and Web site usage information from you when you visit the Site. This information helps us evaluate how our visitors use and navigate the Site on an aggregate basis, including the number and frequency of visitors to each Web page, and the length of their visits."

And in the "How we use your information" part, I saw
"We may combine the information that we collect from you on the Site with information that we collect from third parties. "

And then, Eureka!

"We also share your information with the service providers who help us to run this Site or to fulfill your requests."

In all fairness, there is an opt-out clause...
"You can let us know that you do not wish us to share your information with third parties for marketing purposes or to notify you about our own products and services and special offers by [opting out at the time that you submit your Student Matching Profile..." etc etc.

So I proxied my IP and set off to have them match me up. Of course I randomly clicked options to get me to the page where they ask for my personal info...


(My apologies to the NSA Commercial Solutions Center for using their address and phone #)

So, do you see anywhere on there to opt-out?

Me either.


The results came back and didn't give me the three schools as promised. Nooooo, Just one.



Anyway, I pulled up the IP for EducationConnection and found the site is owned by... Hmm, how interesting.

Kaplan Domains.

Yes, the same Kaplan.

Here's also some from the list of the over 4900 domains they own. all of which have the same page, with the same links.
schoolasap.com
educonnect.com
**goedconnect.com
**educationadvising.com
**educationconnection.com
**edconnectnow.com
(where ** is a 2 digit number. Too many to list)
bachelordegreeeducation.com
theeducationconnection.com
mydegree123.com
etc etc.

You get the picture.


So, in a nutshell, the trick for this site is that they get people to sign up, refer those people to their own school, and then also sell your data to whomever.

Interesting coming from the owner of ECS, AND Kaplan. None other than the Washington Post (the guys that own Newsweek). So this Newsweek article and the rest of the series are shameless self-promotion.


Anyone that is still genuinely interested in pursuing this should read this and this. Or maybe this. Or even this.

And now my work is done. Nothing to do but wait for the libel suit to come rolling in.






P.S. Note to Washington Post: It's not libel if it's true.