4 ms·

TL;DR: At least 200 people participated in a scheme in which they purchased (multiple) Pixel phones and had them shipped to a dealer in NH for resale to others,

by mendelk 10y ago

TL;DR: At least 200 people participated in a scheme in which they purchased (multiple) Pixel phones and had them shipped to a dealer in NH for resale to others, in contravention of the Google ToS. In response, Google suspended all their accounts, without the option to download any their stuff, including email and drive data, etc.

larrynopage 10y ago
Crazy
ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Is a ToS rule like that even legal? This comes a bit more from copyright law, but the US has the "right of first sale"[0] which guarantees individuals the right to sell works they purchased to someone else. I can't imagine this protection would be weaker on physical purchases. Additionally, Google's Terms of Service also says you own your data, including IP rights: "You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."[1] I would question if refusal to grant users access to download their own data could be considered theft. Of course, IANAL, but if I were any of these people, I would seek the opinion a real one immediately. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine [1]http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/
- drewcrawford 10y ago
  Yeah, very legal. The "right of first sale" means that you can't be sued (well, you can be sued but they would lose) if you sell a book you own. It doesn't say that the publisher of that book must continue to sell you additional copies or that the author won't give you a dirty look if you pass in the street or that someone may take steps that don't involve suing you for copyright infringement to discourage your activity. This is, by the way, the same trick that powers RHEL – the binaries are all GPL, so you can totally redistribute them to anyone. If you do though, RHEL will cancel your account. You own your data but not the servers on which that data is stored, so you can't compel Google to give you access to it, any more than you can compel me to produce your comment from my browser cache if you lose it. Refusing to give you access to their servers definitely isn't theft. Very legal. Arguably unethical, but that's a different question.
  - Y_Y 10y ago
    As a quick aside, Google EU is based in Ireland, and under Ireland's data protection legislation you _are_ entitled to data the Google stores (including whatever tracking they're doing that you don't normally have access to). > Under Section 4 of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 and 2003, > you have a right to obtain a copy, clearly explained, of any > information relating to you kept on computer or in a structured > manual filing system or intended for such a system by any entity or organisation
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    Does RHEL sign the binaries or embed a signature somewhere on a per-customer basis to determine if you're redistributing?
serge2k 10y ago
In a sane world Google would get a swift and harsh judgement against them for this. Don't be evil. lol. Anyone remember the glory days of the first sale doctrine? Before we started letting companies essentially make arbitrary binding rules at their whim.
- moyta 10y ago
  If anyone banned bothers to file a small claims case against Google, they could likely win. I've successfully won cases with significantly more grey area against well informed people in small claims, and Google would be compelled to send a company representative who is wholly unfamiliar with the law and what the case is about due to the way small claims court works. The most likely outcome is Google will settle well before trial since they know the odds are against them, and the cost to fight it (just in labor) is much more than the cost of any Pixel phone.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    I'm sure it varies wildly from state-to-state and country-to-country but I believe where they are required to send a representative that's an employee they can send a lawyer that that they have on staff since they meet the requirement. That said I'm not sure what advantage they'd have since small claims is a very different beast. Not to mention the costs to do so would almost certainly exceed the judgement. Might even be cheaper to simply default than deal with the back-and-forth of settling the matter outside of court.
  - fencepost 10y ago
    Ah, but have all involved basically signed away the right to sue through a mandatory arbitration clause in the user agreements?
hackits 10y ago
My response to Google deleting peoples email accounts. Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work: This makes me laugh my ass off. This is a bit of a pet peeve I have with people and modern technology. They believe they have a right to use a service even though they're not paying for the usage of the service. Then they turn around shocked and angry when the free service is removed. `Why! why did they do this to me, this is the biggest injustice! How un-professional of them!`. Kind of like the dicussion I have with my collegues that `shouldn't you know.... support the open source frameworks we use to make money with?`... `Why would we do that?` ... Kind of leaves me speachless.
- Hnrobert42 10y ago
  Someone losing a decade of work makes you laugh your ass off?
  - hackits 10y ago
    Yes, when a simple usb hard disk drive could of saved all his work.
- 75j 10y ago
  The guy you're laughing at is about 65 years old. I know nothing about Dennis Cooper, but people of that age are sometimes just not tech savvy. And based on what I've seen of his response to the situation, he never responded in the way you mischaracterized him above. Why is your first response to "laugh your ass off" when something unfortunate happens to someone else, even if that misfortune was brought about by their own ignorance? Take a look here, his response is actually very thoughtful: https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/dennis-cooper-erased-by-google/ https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/dennis-cooper-erased-b...
- moyta 10y ago
  Really sick sense of humor you've got there bud. Sure, people should pay & support the tools they use, but there are a lot of clueless, inept people out there who have been trained by Google, Facebook, etc that everything is free. Whatsapp with the $1 a year charge was a step in the right direction, but Facebook idiotically killed that (decent) business model. That could have made over $80 mil a month in revenue, while being a nominal amount for the average user to pay.

by mendelk 10y ago

larrynopage 10y ago

Crazy

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Is a ToS rule like that even legal? This comes a bit more from copyright law, but the US has the "right of first sale"[0] which guarantees individuals the right to sell works they purchased to someone else. I can't imagine this protection would be weaker on physical purchases. Additionally, Google's Terms of Service also says you own your data, including IP rights: "You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."[1] I would question if refusal to grant users access to download their own data could be considered theft. Of course, IANAL, but if I were any of these people, I would seek the opinion a real one immediately. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine [1]http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

drewcrawford 10y ago
Yeah, very legal. The "right of first sale" means that you can't be sued (well, you can be sued but they would lose) if you sell a book you own. It doesn't say that the publisher of that book must continue to sell you additional copies or that the author won't give you a dirty look if you pass in the street or that someone may take steps that don't involve suing you for copyright infringement to discourage your activity. This is, by the way, the same trick that powers RHEL – the binaries are all GPL, so you can totally redistribute them to anyone. If you do though, RHEL will cancel your account. You own your data but not the servers on which that data is stored, so you can't compel Google to give you access to it, any more than you can compel me to produce your comment from my browser cache if you lose it. Refusing to give you access to their servers definitely isn't theft. Very legal. Arguably unethical, but that's a different question.
- Y_Y 10y ago
  As a quick aside, Google EU is based in Ireland, and under Ireland's data protection legislation you _are_ entitled to data the Google stores (including whatever tracking they're doing that you don't normally have access to). > Under Section 4 of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 and 2003, > you have a right to obtain a copy, clearly explained, of any > information relating to you kept on computer or in a structured > manual filing system or intended for such a system by any entity or organisation
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  Does RHEL sign the binaries or embed a signature somewhere on a per-customer basis to determine if you're redistributing?

serge2k 10y ago

In a sane world Google would get a swift and harsh judgement against them for this. Don't be evil. lol. Anyone remember the glory days of the first sale doctrine? Before we started letting companies essentially make arbitrary binding rules at their whim.

moyta 10y ago
If anyone banned bothers to file a small claims case against Google, they could likely win. I've successfully won cases with significantly more grey area against well informed people in small claims, and Google would be compelled to send a company representative who is wholly unfamiliar with the law and what the case is about due to the way small claims court works. The most likely outcome is Google will settle well before trial since they know the odds are against them, and the cost to fight it (just in labor) is much more than the cost of any Pixel phone.
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  I'm sure it varies wildly from state-to-state and country-to-country but I believe where they are required to send a representative that's an employee they can send a lawyer that that they have on staff since they meet the requirement. That said I'm not sure what advantage they'd have since small claims is a very different beast. Not to mention the costs to do so would almost certainly exceed the judgement. Might even be cheaper to simply default than deal with the back-and-forth of settling the matter outside of court.
- fencepost 10y ago
  Ah, but have all involved basically signed away the right to sue through a mandatory arbitration clause in the user agreements?

hackits 10y ago

My response to Google deleting peoples email accounts. Google deletes artist’s blog, a decade of his work: This makes me laugh my ass off. This is a bit of a pet peeve I have with people and modern technology. They believe they have a right to use a service even though they're not paying for the usage of the service. Then they turn around shocked and angry when the free service is removed. `Why! why did they do this to me, this is the biggest injustice! How un-professional of them!`. Kind of like the dicussion I have with my collegues that `shouldn't you know.... support the open source frameworks we use to make money with?`... `Why would we do that?` ... Kind of leaves me speachless.

Hnrobert42 10y ago
Someone losing a decade of work makes you laugh your ass off?
- hackits 10y ago
  Yes, when a simple usb hard disk drive could of saved all his work.
75j 10y ago
The guy you're laughing at is about 65 years old. I know nothing about Dennis Cooper, but people of that age are sometimes just not tech savvy. And based on what I've seen of his response to the situation, he never responded in the way you mischaracterized him above. Why is your first response to "laugh your ass off" when something unfortunate happens to someone else, even if that misfortune was brought about by their own ignorance? Take a look here, his response is actually very thoughtful: https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/dennis-cooper-erased-by-google/ https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/blog/dennis-cooper-erased-b...
moyta 10y ago
Really sick sense of humor you've got there bud. Sure, people should pay & support the tools they use, but there are a lot of clueless, inept people out there who have been trained by Google, Facebook, etc that everything is free. Whatsapp with the $1 a year charge was a step in the right direction, but Facebook idiotically killed that (decent) business model. That could have made over $80 mil a month in revenue, while being a nominal amount for the average user to pay.