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I spotted this clause as well “By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-excl

by MetaMan 15y ago

I spotted this clause as well “By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.” Legally then google can do anything they like with your content, whether you made it private to a few friends only or completely public. You just have to trust them. Scary!

MetaMan 15y ago
Effectively there is an invisible google circle and everyone is in it! For me this contradicts my understanding of the basic principle of G+ cirlces. I.e that I can post stuff to a few individuals knowing that only they will see it. If Google can, say, use my photos or posts for their purposes without my permissions then its really not that much better than Facebook. Shame. I've been using G+ over the last couple of days and I like it.
tonfa 15y ago
Note the term: "on or through the Services". And you forgot the last part: "This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services." The "highlights" is a quite readable version of the ToS: http://www.google.com/accounts/tos/highlights/utos-us-en-h.html http://www.google.com/accounts/tos/highlights/utos-us-en-h.h...
- dkarl 15y ago
  I believe "on or through the Services" refers to how the user posts the content: "any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services. Does this sentence limit Google's rights, or just its obligations? It seems like its purpose is to clarify when Google may revoke some terms of the license.
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
That's actually pretty boilerplate for any website that accepts user-uploaded content, even if it's just the text of a status update. Standard common-sense applies here: if you never want someone to ever find something out about you, never tell anyone else, on the Internet or in real life.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- clobber 15y ago
  So because it's boilerplate to any other website that makes it acceptable and right?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pewpewarrows 15y ago
    Go read the hundreds of posts surrounding the silly debate about the Dropbox Terms of Service clarification. Any online service that accepts user-uploaded content is basically forced to include this clause (or something similar to it) to get around legal oddities to even show you the very own content that you uploaded, not to mention your friends that you're sharing it with. People that have no idea what they're talking about read these items in Terms of Service and scream bloody murder while the rest of the technical folks go about their business because they know the legality behind it.
dkarl 15y ago
If I read that correctly, if you use Google+ to share a picture of yourself with your two closest friends, they are giving them the legal right to use that picture in a world-wide advertising campaign. Or show it on a Jumbotron at the Super Bowl. Or email it to your boss. That's unlikely, though. I don't think Google in its current form will abuse that right. However, since many current users are likely to outlive Google, a real problem will arise when Google fades away sometime in the next twenty or thirty years and is acquired, or Google+ is spun off into a company that then goes bankrupt. All content ever posted will be treated as an asset to be liquidated in the most lucrative way possible. In other words, Google+ is just like Facebook, and you have to treat everything posted there as "eventually public." I think most people already treat Facebook as completely public because they're friends with people they don't trust, and they are hoping Google+ will be different. Apparently that hope is naive. Nevertheless, Circles is still the best thing since sliced bread. It doesn't help with privacy much, but it lets me avoid spamming people with posts they aren't interested in. Family stuff goes to my family, geeky stuff goes to geeky people. Circles is for targeting your posts to the right people, not for privacy.

by MetaMan 15y ago

MetaMan 15y ago

Effectively there is an invisible google circle and everyone is in it! For me this contradicts my understanding of the basic principle of G+ cirlces. I.e that I can post stuff to a few individuals knowing that only they will see it. If Google can, say, use my photos or posts for their purposes without my permissions then its really not that much better than Facebook. Shame. I've been using G+ over the last couple of days and I like it.

tonfa 15y ago

Note the term: "on or through the Services". And you forgot the last part: "This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services." The "highlights" is a quite readable version of the ToS: http://www.google.com/accounts/tos/highlights/utos-us-en-h.html http://www.google.com/accounts/tos/highlights/utos-us-en-h.h...

dkarl 15y ago
I believe "on or through the Services" refers to how the user posts the content: "any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services. Does this sentence limit Google's rights, or just its obligations? It seems like its purpose is to clarify when Google may revoke some terms of the license.

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

That's actually pretty boilerplate for any website that accepts user-uploaded content, even if it's just the text of a status update. Standard common-sense applies here: if you never want someone to ever find something out about you, never tell anyone else, on the Internet or in real life.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
clobber 15y ago
So because it's boilerplate to any other website that makes it acceptable and right?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Pewpewarrows 15y ago
  Go read the hundreds of posts surrounding the silly debate about the Dropbox Terms of Service clarification. Any online service that accepts user-uploaded content is basically forced to include this clause (or something similar to it) to get around legal oddities to even show you the very own content that you uploaded, not to mention your friends that you're sharing it with. People that have no idea what they're talking about read these items in Terms of Service and scream bloody murder while the rest of the technical folks go about their business because they know the legality behind it.

dkarl 15y ago

If I read that correctly, if you use Google+ to share a picture of yourself with your two closest friends, they are giving them the legal right to use that picture in a world-wide advertising campaign. Or show it on a Jumbotron at the Super Bowl. Or email it to your boss. That's unlikely, though. I don't think Google in its current form will abuse that right. However, since many current users are likely to outlive Google, a real problem will arise when Google fades away sometime in the next twenty or thirty years and is acquired, or Google+ is spun off into a company that then goes bankrupt. All content ever posted will be treated as an asset to be liquidated in the most lucrative way possible. In other words, Google+ is just like Facebook, and you have to treat everything posted there as "eventually public." I think most people already treat Facebook as completely public because they're friends with people they don't trust, and they are hoping Google+ will be different. Apparently that hope is naive. Nevertheless, Circles is still the best thing since sliced bread. It doesn't help with privacy much, but it lets me avoid spamming people with posts they aren't interested in. Family stuff goes to my family, geeky stuff goes to geeky people. Circles is for targeting your posts to the right people, not for privacy.