A customer to any internet company can be anyone that can read and knows how to use a computer. When a company brands itself as early in life as possible, you’ve potentially got a customer for that life.
Here’s a few examples of tech companies and kids:
Apple Computer has always put heavy focus on education. I mean, heck, I used an Apple //e in grammar school and the Mac hey IIci and Macintosh in high school. Apple’s presence in education goes far and wide.
Yahoo used to have a portion of their web service called Yahooligans, but they decided to ditch that name and go with kids.yahoo.com instead, better known as Yahoo! Kids.
Microsoft has a Kid’s Corner that has several programming options specifically for kids. Did you ever think there was a C# or VB kid edition? There is. Redmond also has Channel 8 which is very youth-oriented.
Google has a presence schools with its Doodle 4 Google program. They also have Google for Educators. The Educators section isn’t for kids specifically but rather for teachers.
. . .
During my tenure in high school and college the internet had no presence whatsoever.
Today you can’t go into a single school (at least in the United States) without finding internet in there.
If one were to ask "Are big tech companies responsible with their influence on education?", the answer would be undoubtedly be yes. If there’s one area where tech doesn’t screw over people, it’s in the classroom. Having children know tech companies by name, while a bit scary to some, has never shown to have any adverse effects on a child’s education.
Personally speaking, I’m happy big tech companies have anything to do with kids at all because there’s no money in it compared to pursuing adult consumers.
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