Complete FUD. Best article I've read on this is from The Verge. Google would be unable to create backups or thumbnails for example without these rights.
Holy cow -- Apple says they may delete any iCloud content that they find "objectionable"? And that they have a right to scan your content to determine such?
Problem is: the rights as worded by Google allow a whole lot more than the reasonable-use wording by Dropbox. Remember that recent flap about iOS apps uploading users' entire Contacts list for non-relevant uses? hey, users gave permission for the apps to access that data without explicit limits; same idea, same concerns.
>Problem is: the rights as worded by Google allow a whole lot more than the reasonable-use wording by Dropbox.
They actually don't. Google specifically enumerates the rights that you're granting them. Dropbox actually does not state specifically what rights Dropbox needs to provide the services, and as such, could claim that you're granting all of the rights that Google has granted and more. This does not include full ownership, which they explicitly deny.
>Google specifically enumerates the rights that you're granting them
They sure do. It just turns out one of these rights is that they can use your content for promotional purposes (advertising?).
Dropbox may not have such a detailed TOS, but they are clear on one thing: whatever rights you do grant them are solely for the provision of the service to you.
The problem is that Dropbox may, at their sole discretion, decide that providing ads is part of "the Service". Under their TOS, they could do that without changing it.
Realistically, Dropbox won't ever do that. But the key thing here is that Dropbox's TOS does not explicitly state exactly what rights they believe they need to operate with.
note that google also has a privacy policy in addition to a TOS. Most of the hypothetical horrible things that people are assuming the TOS allows google to do with your data are forbidden by their privacy policy.
No. If they are to enable you to share a document you need to give them license to do so. If they are to create copies of the files across datacenters and employ OCR on images and use that to improve their algorithms, they need to inlucde that in their terms of service to avoid getting sued.
I'm not so sure about that. Use, host, store, reproduce are no-brainers. Modify and create derivative works are for thumbnails, OCRing, converting to other formats for displaying. The rest are for sharing with friends, or the world, right?
Edit: Read stuartmemo's The Verge article if you're interested, it's pretty insightful.
As phrased, the agreement would let Google publish, for open searchable access by the world, all files from all users. Indeed, methinks Google's whole underlying goal in all their endeavors is to mine data they'd not get thru other means. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe Google isn't (or just hasn't gotten there but intends to someday) scouring every GMail, every Chrome OS click, every OCRed image (even every snapshot just in case some text may be discerned), etc. to feed back into their grand ads-placed-via-data-mining profit center - it's just what they do; they may not do it (yet) in any way revealing private details, but they're sure not providing all these free services and tools out of sheer good will.
You're thinking in terms of what reasonable uses the terms apply to. The problem is what UNreasonable uses are allowed by those who consent to those terms. Publish the entire private works (at least those docs stored on Google Drive) of yesbabyyes in a collectable volume? you agreed to it...
It's extremely likely that Google will search your personal data for ad targeting purposes. It's what their entire company exists to do.
The only way I'd believe they won't do it is if they VERY publicly state that they won't in completely unequivocal terms such that they'll be held liable if they do.
> As phrased, the agreement would let Google publish, for open searchable access by the world, all files from all users.
This would be corporate suicide and Google won't do this unless they fall to the current status of the like of AOL. At which point we will all have moved on to the next shiny object.
Well, first off, Google has a privacy policy [1] where they commit to not publishing my entire works without my consent.
Even without that, though -- what do you think would happen if they did what you're suggesting? I think the public punishment would be worse than any legal repercussions.
And that's what it comes down to, IMO. I regret that we have to have these far reaching policies and agreements filled with legalese, but there is also the social contract.
Of course, what you say about data mining for ads is true. If you don't want to expose yourself to that, don't expose your data to Google.
> Well, first off, Google has a privacy policy [1] where they commit to not publishing my entire works without my consent.
It doesn't say that anywhere. The Privacy Policy covers "What information we collect and why we collect it.". In other words, the PP is about information they collect about you using the service, not stuff you upload to Drive. Think IP addresses, cookies, log-on times etc.
> Even without that, though -- what do you think would happen if they did what you're suggesting? I think the public punishment would be worse than any legal repercussions.
So your saying that TOS don't matter and we shouldn't read or analyse them because we trust Google wont do anything untoward? So we are we even having this discussion in the first place then?
> It doesn't say that anywhere. The Privacy Policy covers "What information we collect and why we collect it.". In other words, the PP is about information they collect about you using the service, not stuff you upload to Drive. Think IP addresses, cookies, log-on times etc.
I'm not so sure about that:
We collect information in two ways:
- Information you give us. [...]
- Information we get from your use of our services. [...]
[...]
We will ask for your consent before using information for a
purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.
> So your saying that TOS don't matter and we shouldn't read or analyse them because we trust Google wont do anything untoward?
Of course we should. And when we've read them, we should realize that if we want to use such services, we need to assign the provider certain rights to the content. Otherwise, the services couldn't exist. I'm just saying that I think the social contract is actually stronger, so the fallout from bad behavior would be worse punishment than the slaps on the wrist the US government would give. Of course, you don't have to agree with that, it's my belief.
> So we are we even having this discussion in the first place then?
Why indeed. Perhaps because more people have read lazy analyses such as the one linked, than honest analyses such as the one by The Verge (or even, gasp, read the whole actual TOS and made their on analysis), which several people has linked to in the comments. I suggest you read it.
Why not make the ToS incremental so you agree as-and-when you use the relevant part of the service. Click share "Do you authorise Google to share this document yada-yada", done.
Most users will only consume part of the service, why should they have to agree to 100%?
No, it's not. "Publicly perform"?! Tell me in what reasonable backup scenario would google need the right to publicly perform your content? It's not reasonable at all; it's egregious and honestly insulting.
Look, I get it: the chances of Google acting on these rights are small and the PR backlash for abuse would be brutal. But this is a great example of a legal department _far_ overreaching in their corporate protection efforts.
I really want to use GDrive, but even if the odds of abuse are unimaginable, I really hate that they make me sign a contract that makes me out to be a functional idiot. "Sign away all your legal rights--it's okay because you can trust us."
>No, it's not. "Publicly perform"?! Tell me in what reasonable backup scenario would google need the right to publicly perform your content? It's not reasonable at all; it's egregious and honestly insulting.
Exactly. The same FUD was being spread around a while back regarding google's terms as related to photo sharing on G+. Google needs these rights to provide certain features...
I suspect you are misremembering either a real story about an advertiser using someone's photo without permission or rumours based on it that occasionally become popular.
An advertiser once, against the FB terms of service, used a user's profile picture in their advertising. The advertiser was banned from the platform. Here's a news story that might jog your memory on this: http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/facebook-dating-ads-2/
That sounds about right. I'm not intimately familiar with FB's terms of use - I'm not sure if there is some differentiation between how they can use your other content and how they can use your profile / profile photo, etc. I haven't heard of Google doing anything like that though, but then their advertising model is a bit different.
Yet, with those rights, Google are able to (worldwide) ; create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
I mean "publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content", how on earth can you formulate that so broadly for a service intended to store private files??? And how after reading that can you qualify it as "Complete FUD"?
In depth analysis are interesting and everybody here understand that google is not going to be THAT evil in the short term, but the fact this _is_ formulated like that is very interesting and not fud at all.
Google can only do those rights. They cannot sell your content, for example, because it is not enumerated in the list.
Dropbox, on the other hand, could, theoretically decide that they want to sell your information as a part of the service, and their TOS allows it.
Also keep in mind that this is Google's unified TOS for ALL Google services and products. So it includes Youtube and Google Music, both of which require those rights in order to function.
A blog post saying "We have 20 petabytes of data in Google Drive" would be promoting the service with your data. Lawyers are always going to argue for the vaguest terms possible in situations like this.
Under Google's TOS they can promote their service by posting my pictures in advertisements on other pages, under the title, "Look what other people are storing on Google Drive."
Sure, and see virtually every user flee the service. It wouldn't be shocking if Congress and the FTC got involved in such a situation, either - they got involved in Google's P3P non-policy, for example.
TOSes are generally overly broad, yes. Virtually every one you've ever agreed to had language that could be interpreted in an absurdly negative manner.
"Sure, and see virtually every user flee the service. It wouldn't be shocking if Congress and the FTC got involved in such a situation, either - they got involved in Google's P3P non-policy, for example."
Well then they shouldn't have a problem amending the TOS, right? If they know what's okay and what's going too far, they must have some idea where the line is.
"TOSes are generally overly broad, yes. Virtually every one you've ever agreed to had language that could be interpreted in an absurdly negative manner."
> Well then they shouldn't have a problem amending the TOS, right? If they know what's okay and what's going too far, they must have some idea where the line is.
Being extremely specific in TOSes tends to lead to lots and lots of revisions as you discover unexpected cases. As a user, I'd prefer a TOS that's a little more broad instead of having to monitor it every five minutes for tweaks.
> Dropbox's TOS seems pretty clear on the matter.
Dropbox's TOS for years was similar to Drive's. I'd expect Google to eventually make the same clarifications in the TOS Dropbox did in 2011.
That said, while we're being paranoid about TOSes, Dropbox's says they can change the terms at any point, and not notify you beyond updating them on their site. They could change the terms to "we will publicly share everything you've ever put on Dropbox with your worst enemies" tomorrow, and the next time you sync you're theoretically subject to the new terms.
You may be right, but that doesn't prevent them from using those same rights for other purposes (much like TSA searches being used to find drugs rather than terrorism).
If Google really means it, and wants it to be clear, they could put it right into the TOS: "Google may do X, when it does so in order to provide feature Y".
Let's say Mark Zuck. wants to use Google Drive, and upload all Facebook code on it. Using this TOS, it allows Google to go through the Facebook code, and use it to improve Google+.
As a programmer that uses Dropbox to backup all my code, I find this a little bit scary.
If you are concerned with storing your code on a service, perhaps you shouldn't store your code on that service?
The way I see it, they could go through your code and use your secret sauce, in secret. Now, with these TOS, let's say they are in the clear, legally. Now weigh the punishment Dropbox would receive for breaching your copyright, vs the punishment they would receive for using their users'/customers' data immorally, for their own gain.
There's only one word I have issues with in the entire TOS, and that's "promoting". Basically they can do the same annoying thing Facebook does when they use your face to recommend pages to other people. Google could potentially use your stuff to build ads for Drive.
These are the same types of arguments that a few of the more vocal but ill-informed professional photographers out there use to spread FUD about photo sharing sites like Flickr, etc.
The bottom line is that you, as a user, have to grant such a license to Google, Flickr, etc in order for them to be able to provide the services that you want. Its a copyright issue, and I haven't seen any other good way around it in anyone else's TOS yet and I've read quite a few.
reading the article mentioned
Skydrive: (GRANT ALL)..."posted on the service solely to the extent necessary to provide the service"
GDrive: (GRANT ALL)..."the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."
Services vs. Service,
Promoting vs providing
will showing book drafts being created by me on Google Books is promoting/improving there service, yep.
Google may not do so ever, but you have to trust them instead of being on TOS.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-terms...