7 ms·

The show-stoppers are "... promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones". Suppose I use Google Drive to store my current project, a big-ass no

by cstross 12y ago

The show-stoppers are "... promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones". Suppose I use Google Drive to store my current project, a big-ass novel that's going to see simultaneous publication by major publishers in a number of markets around the world. Google could in principle give it away for free to new sign-ups for their service as a promotional goodie. Or "develop new ones" ... well, we already have Google Books: I am not sanguine about the prospect of a not-yet-published book of mine suddenly showing up in Google Books, or a next-generation incarnation of Google Books, without my say-so (or an agreement to pay royalties, because that's what I earn my living from). These uses are certainly unlikely but they're not impossible, and that big-ass slab of lawyer-speak in the middle of the ToS is a show-stopper for me. Which is a shame, because if they'd just bothered to specify that the rights are for the limited purpose of [yadda] internal development of new services -- i.e. as test data -- I'd be fine with that. Dropbox is a paid-for service that specifically supports business uses. It's ToS is acceptable. Google Drive is mostly used for free, and as the old saying puts it: if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product.

diminoten 12y ago
> Google could in principle give it away for free to new sign-ups for their service as a promotional goodie. No they couldn't, because other parts of their ToS explicitly let you retain control over your copyright. You'd sue them, and win. Also, they'd lose all their customers and probably shut down the Google Drive program entirely. Maybe we should just try and find a lawyer to interpret this impartially (something you should do anyway if you're trying to pick a ToS that's "compatible" with your needs -- you really don't want to get burned by a tricky ToS, do you?), but as far as I understand the whole point of this passage is to allow Google to use your data to test their products, e.g. facial recognition, translation, etc., in an automated fashion. Exactly like Gmail, I am guessing the contents of individual user's drive accounts are probably scraped at regular intervals by machines for all sorts of purposes. This passage is a CYA for that activity. They're not looking for sneaky ways to get your book into their store. I'm not saying "use Google Drive over Dropbox!", because I don't give a hoot. But the Drive ToS isn't why you shouldn't use Google Drive.
- dhimes 12y ago
  Also, they'd lose all their customers and probably shut down the Google Drive program entirely While I agree with your thesis on the whole, I am sad to say that this probably won't happen. People will just think, "Well, I'm not writing a novel so this doesn't affect me" and keep on using it. My interpretation of what they are trying to say is that they may need to modify stuff by wrapping headers on it and so on to make it work with their systems, but they won't steal your ideas or give them away.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    My interpretation of what they are trying to say is that they may need to modify stuff by wrapping headers on it and so on to make it work with their systems, Or: we make tape backups of data and tapes a shipped to some storage and we cannot guarantee that your data is immediately erased from all our infrastructure (including types) the moment after you delete it.
    - wstrange 12y ago
      There is a youtube video from a google engineer that talks about their backup. Your data is (supposedly) encrypted with your private key. They can't guarantee that all copies are deleted, but they can (at least in theory) delete the key to make the data inaccessible. Whether you believe them or not is a different story...
- jellicle 12y ago
  > No they couldn't Of course they could, because you gave them a license to do so. Facebook and Google do this explicitly already: they use your images and written content, which you presumably have the original copyright on, to sell their products and services (customized ads and the like). They haven't done it with Stross' novel yet, but the legal issues are the same. http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/11/you-make-ads-better/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/11/you-make-ads-better/
  - diminoten 12y ago

by cstross 12y ago

diminoten 12y ago

> Google could in principle give it away for free to new sign-ups for their service as a promotional goodie. No they couldn't, because other parts of their ToS explicitly let you retain control over your copyright. You'd sue them, and win. Also, they'd lose all their customers and probably shut down the Google Drive program entirely. Maybe we should just try and find a lawyer to interpret this impartially (something you should do anyway if you're trying to pick a ToS that's "compatible" with your needs -- you really don't want to get burned by a tricky ToS, do you?), but as far as I understand the whole point of this passage is to allow Google to use your data to test their products, e.g. facial recognition, translation, etc., in an automated fashion. Exactly like Gmail, I am guessing the contents of individual user's drive accounts are probably scraped at regular intervals by machines for all sorts of purposes. This passage is a CYA for that activity. They're not looking for sneaky ways to get your book into their store. I'm not saying "use Google Drive over Dropbox!", because I don't give a hoot. But the Drive ToS isn't why you shouldn't use Google Drive.

dhimes 12y ago
Also, they'd lose all their customers and probably shut down the Google Drive program entirely While I agree with your thesis on the whole, I am sad to say that this probably won't happen. People will just think, "Well, I'm not writing a novel so this doesn't affect me" and keep on using it. My interpretation of what they are trying to say is that they may need to modify stuff by wrapping headers on it and so on to make it work with their systems, but they won't steal your ideas or give them away.
- danieldk 12y ago
  My interpretation of what they are trying to say is that they may need to modify stuff by wrapping headers on it and so on to make it work with their systems, Or: we make tape backups of data and tapes a shipped to some storage and we cannot guarantee that your data is immediately erased from all our infrastructure (including types) the moment after you delete it.
  - wstrange 12y ago
    There is a youtube video from a google engineer that talks about their backup. Your data is (supposedly) encrypted with your private key. They can't guarantee that all copies are deleted, but they can (at least in theory) delete the key to make the data inaccessible. Whether you believe them or not is a different story...
jellicle 12y ago
> No they couldn't Of course they could, because you gave them a license to do so. Facebook and Google do this explicitly already: they use your images and written content, which you presumably have the original copyright on, to sell their products and services (customized ads and the like). They haven't done it with Stross' novel yet, but the legal issues are the same. http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/11/you-make-ads-better/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/11/you-make-ads-better/
- diminoten 12y ago