Edgenuity Use of Online Content: Illegal, or just Unethical?

My original posting is below.
Pursuant actions and conversations follow.
I thank Edgenuity for their quick, concerned and professional response.

September 26, 2013
Conversation with Deborah Rayow, Vice President of Core Curriculum and Credit Recovery Solutions at Edgenuity

Deb indicated that in order to comply with California state law which prohibits advertising in schools:
- sites are run through a proxy server which (among other things) appends the ‘education2020.us’ to the URL
- sites with URLs containing ‘education2020.us’ are put on the school's white list, which allows student access
- if students remove the ‘education2020.us’ from the Edgenuity URL, then the resulting (original) web site will be blocked
We discussed the following approach as being respectful of the online content authors:
- contact each author, asking for permission to serve up a school-appropriate page
- allow each author to see the proposed school-appropriate page to check functionality and appearance
- if permission is granted to serve up the school-appropriate page, then have the proxy server display a message that:
  - clearly identifies the original URL and author
  - states that permission has been granted to Edgenuity to use a school-appropriate (in particular, ad-free) page
  - thanks the web author
  - [perhaps] encourages students to support the web site outside of its use in Edgenuity
- if permission is not granted, then the online content will not be used
Deb indicated that she would work on a ‘mock-up’ of how this might appear, and get back to me with it.
September 27–October 3, 2013
Email correspondence with Deborah Rayow
- [September 27] I suggested that something like this at the top of the page could be appropriate:
  Dr. Carol JVF Burns, creator of
  http://www.onemathematicalcat.org/algebra_book/online_problems/function_notation.htm
  has graciously granted permission to Edgenuity
  to offer this modified version of the page for ad-restricted educational use.
  
  If you find this page helpful, please thank the author by supporting their site outside of Edgenuity.
- [September 27] Deb indicated that the proxy that launches the web page is not able to add anything to the page. She said that I could make a separate page with the message, and they could link to it.
- [September 27] I responded that if an ad-free version existed on the server, then it would likely become the preferred page. Also, if the ad-free page was hosted on my own server (not on Edgenuity's) then Edgenuity should be concerned that the page could be changed at any time without their knowledge.
- [September 27] Deb replied that I would only need to supply a version with the text—they would strip out the ads. She also indicated that they could host that version on their own server.
- [October 1] I reminded Deb that it was my hope that we're working toward a solution that will be fair to all of their online content providers. Even though I might be willing to create a special version of my page, is Edgenuity also planning to contact all the other providers and asking them to create a special page, too? If Edgenuity hosts the page, then we (content providers) can't keep track of our page usage, and we don't get any benefit for this traffic and link. I told Deb that it is certainly possible to insert text on the page (e.g., with Javascript), even though they don't have it implemented yet, and I asked her to talk to her tech crew about it.
- [October 3] Deb indicated that the right technical resource on her end was out that week, so she would connect with him the following week and get back to me.
October 16–17, 2013
Email correspondence with Deborah Rayow
- [October 16] Deb: ‘We’ve looked at the difficulty level of displaying this in the viewer itself, and unfortunately, it is more work than we can take on at this point. [text omitted] The only place we could display the text is on the course map, which is where the student goes to launch the activity. [text omitted] We can replace the links to your site and have our students go to another site instead. Please let us know whether that would be your preference, or whether you would like us to keep onemathematicalcat in the activities and put the text on the course map.’
- [October 17] Me: ‘I'm fine with the text being displayed on the course map, and keeping my pages... however, I want to make sure that the exercises are functioning correctly, and that the raw javascript isn't being shown at the bottom of the page. Could you please check this for me on my pages?’
- [October 17] Deb: ‘Absolutely. We will have someone do a full QA to compare the version that runs in our proxy with the version that runs outside of the proxy to make sure all exercises are functioning as designed.’

Edgenuity use of online content: Illegal, or just Unethical?

Imagine that you've put your time, talents, finances—and lots of love—into creating a gift. Someone comes along, rips off your thoughtful and careful packaging, breaks part of the gift in this vicious process, tears away your identity as the creator, punches on their own name, and then sells it to the original gift recipient.

This feels so wrong to me. Perhaps I'm ultra-sensitive, since I'm one of the people whose gift is being tattered and sold. So, I throw this out into cyperspace. Am I over-reacting? Are others similarly offended?

I frequently look at my server logs, to see who uses my website. This has appeared for many months now:

Since my own website's Terms of Use expressly prohibits the use of my materials in any for-profit setting, I began the process of determining how my materials were being used by Edgenuity:

August 10, 2013: email to solutions@edgenuity.com requesting info about how my materials are being used by them.
No response.
August 16, 2013: follow-up email to solutions@edgenuity.com with a request to forward to their legal department.
No response.
August 23, 2013: telephone call to Edgenuity customer support, 877.202.0338; left a message asking that they contact me.
No response.
August 28, 2013: follow-up telephone call to Edgenuity customer support, 877.202.0338; left a message asking that they contact me.
August 30, 2013. Spoke with an operator Carol (same as my name!) at Edgenuity; I believe it was this conversation that put me in touch with Terence McCullough, in digital marketing at Edgenuity.
September 5, 2013: Spoke with Terence McCullough (email Terence.McCullough@edgenuity.com); I emailed him the backlink that I was getting. He informed me that the backlink I was seeing in my server logs ‘isn't even used anymore’. He said he'd contact the education team to see if they have knowledge about how my materials are being used, and get back in touch with me.
September 9, 2013: Received an email from Lynette McVay, Director of School Funding, email Lynette.McVay@Edgenuity.com, who informed me that (direct extract from email): ‘Our teachers do often sometimes assign a visit to your site as part of a math class,
which is why you’re seeing visits routed through our online content viewer’.
In a September 10, 2013 email response to her, I asked if I could be provided with a guest login so I could see how my materials are being used.
September 11, 2013: Email response from Lynette McVay: ‘No problem. I’ll have our Account Management group email you a trail password for a week.’
September 17, 2013: Follow-up email to Lynette McVay, since I hadn't heard from the Account Management group. Subsequently that day I received a one-week guest login, so I could see how my materials were being used.

At this point, I was able to see how Edgenuity uses (abuses?) online content.
The screenshots below illustrate the following behavior:

referring section and author contact info	page served by Edgenuity	the original page (click the image—it is a link)
Ratios and Rates http://www.mathisfun.com `funmath@gmail.com`	note removal of logo, site style, advertisement clicking on any footer info in their version (e.g., ‘Contact’) does not work the search box does not work in their version
Using Proportions http://mathbits.com `donrob@twcny.rr.com`	Look carefully at the footer—Edgenuity has changed the copyright URL to their own! clicking on the ‘Donna Roberts’ link results in a blank page
Unit Rates http://www.aaamath.com `webmaster@aaamath.com`	the author's Terms of Use is clearly being violated ‘Send Us Feedback’ doesn't work in the Edgenuity version	I've enlarged the Legal Notice here, so it's easier to read. (It's also a link to the original legal notice page.)
Function Notation http://www.onemathematicalcat.org `fishcaro@verizon.net`	This is one of my own pages. The link to me was added after I discovered what Edgenuity was doing. Originally, there was absolutely nothing left that identified me as the author. By the way, their ‘adjusted’ link sends users to ‘their’ version of my homepage: `http://www.onemathematicalcat.org.education2020.us` Their automated software completely breaks the page. This is all Javascript code (none of which appears on the actual page).	Here's what the actual (working) web exercise looks like! (It's a link—click to see the real thing.)
Use Variables to Represent Numbers http://www.themathpage.com Lawrence Spector `themathpage@nyc.rr.com`	the App Store and Android Market buttons are broken the donation button page (link at bottom) doesn't work, due to a missing icon Here's the broken donation page:	This is what the donation page actually looks like:

Edgenuity use of online content: Illegal, or just Unethical?

Edgenuity use of online content: Illegal, or just Unethical?

Edgenuity: Common Core Algebra I; Samples of What They Serve Up