Edmodo

What did it do?

Edmodo was an education technology platform for primary and secondary schools. Teachers used it to share content, set tests and homework, and communicate with students, colleagues and parents. The platform was free and used around the world.

Why did it shut down?

Having reached tens of millions of users as a free service, Edmodo was sold to China's NetDragon in 2018 for $137.5 million; according to EdSurge, the sale prompted commentary that independent education companies offering free services were in decline. In 2017 it suffered a major data breach affecting the data of 77 million users. In August 2022 the company announced it could no longer sustain the expected level of service and shut the platform down on 22 September 2022. In May 2023 the US Federal Trade Commission sued the company, accusing it of collecting children's data without parental consent.

The story

On 15 August 2022 teachers around the world received an announcement they had not expected: Edmodo would shut down completely on 22 September. In its closure statement the company wrote that it was no longer possible to sustain the level of service users deserved, and said it would destroy the data it held. Teachers had only a few weeks to download their data.

Edmodo was founded in 2008 by Nic Borg, Jeff O'Hara, Crystal Hutter and Ed O'Neil as a microblogging platform for teachers. This school social network, where teachers could share content, set tests and homework and communicate with students and parents, won backing from investors such as Index Ventures, Benchmark, Greylock Partners, NEA and Union Square Ventures. Having reached 18 million users in 2013, the company bought Root-1 in a bid to become the app store of education; Root-1's founder Vibhu Mittal became Edmodo's CEO the following year. In 2014 came assessment tools to measure student progress, along with content partnerships with the Oxford and Cambridge university presses.

In May 2017 Edmodo notified users that it had suffered a major data breach affecting the usernames, hashed passwords and email addresses of 77 million users. In April 2018 China's NetDragon bought the company for $137.5 million in cash and shares. In the early months of the pandemic UNESCO included Edmodo among the tools it recommended for distance learning; the company said it had more than 100 million users.

The legal process continued after the closure. In May 2023 the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Edmodo, alleging that it had collected data from children without parental consent and had shifted responsibility for complying with children's privacy law onto schools. The proposed $6 million fine would only be payable if the company resumed operating in the US. In June 2023, at the initiative of the FTC and federal prosecutors, a permanent injunction was imposed on the company, banning it from collecting more data than necessary and requiring the deletion of data collected from students under 13.

Edmodo shows that even a free product woven into the daily work of millions of teachers can be shut down with a few weeks' notice when its owner's priorities change or the service becomes hard to sustain. And on a platform serving schools, data responsibility follows you even after closure.

Lessons for founders

• On a platform offering free services to schools, design the revenue model before chasing user numbers; scale alone does not bring sustainability.
• If you process children's data, put consent and data minimisation rules at the heart of the product; shifting responsibility onto schools will not protect you.
• When deciding to close, announcing clearly how user data will be deleted preserves trust to the very end.

Sources

1. Edmodo (Wikipedia)
2. NetDragon Signs Agreement to Acquire Edmodo to Create the Largest Global Learning Community (PR Newswire, 2018-04-08)
3. FTC Says Ed Tech Provider Edmodo Unlawfully Used Children's Personal Information for Advertising and Outsourced Compliance to School Districts (Federal Trade Commission, 2023-05-22)
4. Popular K-12 Tool Edmodo Shuts Down (EdSurge, 2022-08-16)
5. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q647397
6. Wikipedia (Turkish)
7. Wikipedia (English)

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