Chicago schools to Google – we'd rather lose Search than be forced to accept AI

DivingForGold

Choose another search engine, DuckDuckGo

dragontamer

I wonder if Kagi can come up with a good marking opportunity here!

Larrikin

There are now a few articles about the protest. I personally prefer Block Club Chicago as my source on Chicago news. https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/11/12/after-google-warns-s...

ChrisArchitect

Didn't Google update the blog post that caused all the outrage two weeks ago saying there'd be more controls etc? > After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on. > We’ll share more specifics with schools in the coming months ahead of the changes rolling out so they have time to prepare and enable a smooth transition. Our goal is simple: provide school leaders the control and confidence to use AI products in classrooms as they see fit. > We’ll continue to listen to feedback and evolve our approach as we work in partnership with schools, teachers, pedagogical experts, and parents on helping the next generation learn and thrive. https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/educatio...

31337Logic

Very nice!! I hope other school boards find this inspiring!!

anabis

I consider Google evil here. Android's "Ask Gemini" context menu (PROCESS_TEXT Intent) is registered by the Google app, _not_ the Gemini app, making it hard to remove. I am considering asking Brave browser dev to filter it, since its an unwanted ad at this point.

collinmcnulty

I think a lot of “inevitable” things have lost their air of invincibility in the last couple weeks and Google being able to shove AI to people who don’t want it is one of them.

glimshe

Haven't I heard that before? "We can't remove IE from Windows, it's part of the OS, there's nothing we can do about it"

DeepYogurt

Go Chicago!

mattmcknight

This is nonsense. Google Search is AI. Did they complain when google added structured results (knowledge panel)? Did they complain about summaries per result? Then, Google blocks it and it's not good enough for them? Just bing it. I personally miss the 10 blue links you get on scholar.google.com.