Calm Down Internet: Google Drive's Terms Are The Standard For Countless Websites, Including Gmail
from the oh-good,-this-again... dept
Remember when everyone freaked out about parts of Pinterest's terms of service? And how, slowly but surely, word got out that the same terms can be found on virtually every website and are mostly harmless? And then everyone learned a lesson and calmed down, and would approach future terms of service with new knowledge and understanding?
Wait, scratch that last part. TNW reports that the terms of Google's much-anticipated Drive service, which launched this week, have been treated to the same warm welcome from the Twitterverse. Someone spotted yet another variant of the "worldwide license" clause that all websites include, and before long the freakout flag was flying.
The clause in question, though admittedly scary-sounding, is routine:
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
I hate to break it to the panicking masses, but Google is not planning on turning your spreadsheets into a touring art exhibit. A broad license like this is necessary to allow Google to operate such a service, permitting them to move the data around freely on their many servers all over the world, and display it to you (or the people you share it with) through a variety of devices and interfaces. The nightmare-labyrinth of international copyright law means that the most Google could do without such a clause is accept your data then immediately delete it—and even then someone would probably try to claim they made five unauthorized copies en route to the trash bin.
Perhaps most amusing is the fact that this piece of legal lingo doesn't come from the Google Drive terms of service, but from Google's overall terms for all their services. Meaning it already applies to everything from Gmail to Google Mars—so this might just be getting started. At this point, I suspect every social network and user content website online is waiting for the hammer to fall, since any one of them could be singled out at any time for yet another round. Oh well, I guess nothing beats a good freakout.
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Filed Under: google drive, license, terms of service
Companies: google, pinterest
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Typo
This should, I believe, be "then".
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drop box
"Your Stuff & Your Privacy: By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, "your stuff"). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don't claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below."
SkyDrive:
Your Content: Except for material that we license to you, we don't claim ownership of the content you provide on the service. Your content remains your content. We also don't control, verify, or endorse the content that you and others make available on the service."
contextual wrapping the "licence" within the scope of providing the service advertised would also allow them do what they need to do to provide the service, without taking more rights than they actually need.
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http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/04/google-on-track-to-outspend-banks-big-tobacco-i n-lobbying.ars?src=ggl
"Google's spending may look excessive on the surface, but it's important to note the company also spent some $4 million lobbying against SOPA and PIPA,"
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I don't know, if a corporation lobbies congress about CISPA but doesn't tell you their stance. That's kind of deceitful no? Why would they not tell you what position they are lobbying congress for?
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Do not speak on things of which you know NOTHING about.
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We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services).
Meaning somewhere along the line, you are granting them all the same rights that Google asks for - they are just breaking it up into various things you "agree" to at other points, and explaining it all here. But that paragraph about what permissions they need explains exactly what I just explained about why companies require these licenses.
Conversely, right before the "controversial" paragraph in Google's terms, there is this line:
Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.
Which, just like the lines you praise from DropBox and SkyDrive, makes it clear that Google is not taking ownership of anything.
The terms you praise are less scary on the surface, but are in fact just obscuring the exact same thing that Google makes clear, front and centre, in their unified terms.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120424/12342918635/acta-may-interfere-with-fundamental- freedoms-eu-data-protection-supervisor.shtml
It's a story about "could" or "might" or "may". Mike points to these things all the time. Heck, the whole argument against SOPA was based on what it MAY do.
Basically, what Google is asking for is an extreme license that allows them all rights to your content, including publishing your spreadsheets at will. It also means that any art work that your produce and put there is immediately and fully cross licensed to them - in all manners.
It's a very, very wide ranging and unneeded grab for rights. I guess because it's god Google doing it, it's all good. Why give them such a large benefit of the doubt?
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If there's one thing you can count on Microsoft to do right, it's exactly this: spreading FUD about their competitors.
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Or rage filled flatulence. They're hard to tell apart.
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To assume though that everything is some vast conspiracy orchestrated by Google... well, if you need psychiatric help then just ask for it. There's no judging here. Unless you're being blatantly obtuse/ignorant. In which case you deserve what you have coming.
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What Google is trying to allow for is the ability for them to take your data, and in a YouTube style way, present it in different formats, to translate it, to display it, publish it, or otherwise use it in any way they see fit without your express permission.
That isn't hosting.
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"not planning to" is bullshit. It's just as much bullshit as saying "don't worry about sopa, because the mafiaa isn't planning to take down your website". People putting up with this stuff because they trust someone is "not planning" on using it is one of the reasons we end up with horrible agreements accepted as standards, then of course someone does end up using the terms and probably doesn't even have to disclose that they are doing so.
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Actually many, many hosting companies include the exact same worldwide license clause in their terms of service. And all hosting companies include total liability exemption for damages resulting from any and all uses of the service.
So um - you're completely wrong about that I'm afraid.
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google should
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You need more shape-shifting lizard people and a tie-in with the JFK assassination to make your theory sound plausible.
Otherwise you just sound like a little kid in need of a logic class.
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Do not speak on things of which you know NOTHING about."
Emphasis on "maybe" and "but right now, we do not know".
YOU were making a declarative statement on something you have no proof of. As such, he was correct. YOU don't know, neither does he. But his comment was to point out that you specifically were stating a false, declarative statement about their support for CISPA.
Unless you have definitive proof/evidence, DO NOT state such things as fact. You can put "Well I believe..." but don't put it the way you did. Unless you want to get called out on it.
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I am going to change my habits this year and make myself and my activities a lot more Anonymous.
The external Drives and their External Backups will be quite good for me and they are never ONLINE in any way.
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However, in my opinion, I honestly don't care one way or another. At the end of the day, a company is going to do what a company is going to do. I have very little say in the matter.
Honestly, no offense, rewrite your sentence. I'm having difficulty understanding some of it. "you won't speak about publicly or say you have not stance on is not fair to the people who use their services". That's English obviously, it just seems unclear. So I can't properly respond.
I assume you're saying something about Google and the people who use it's services, but what exactly is unclear to me?
Nor did I say Google doesn't know their own stance on a given issue. To think a person or company wouldn't know their/it's own stance on something is indeed naive, which is a good thing I didn't say or think that. Again, we were discussing YOU. And your false statement about Google, for which you've presented no proof/evidence to support your original claim.
Now, let's make it simple. Do you have evidence (of a verifiable nature) that "Google Supports CISPA, end of story."?
If you do, present it please.
If you don't, care to retract your statement? Or amend it to something like... "I believe Google supports CISPA, but I have no proof of such support. As such it is purely speculation on my part."
The latter gets respect from me and others here because you're stating your beliefs and acknowledging you have nothing to support them. The former will get you called out on, as it clearly did, and which you're now trying to detract away from by changing the conversation and/or by putting words in my mouth, when clearly the focus was on you and your statement.
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That's quite a leap of logic. I don't like Google's TOS, so I don't use Google services as far as possible.
But that's the key point: with a company imposing terms on their own services, I can choose not to use their services.
With matters of law, I have no such choice.
It's a rather large difference.
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Surely it is obvious that when a company refuses to tell you their stance on a topic that their position on that topic is not acceptable to the majority. That is how politics works.
I'm not going to argue about what words I put in your mouth because I truly don't care and I did nothing of the sort. I believe your first reply what that I said Google was evil, you assumed that. The words I supposedly put in your mouth were questions I was asking those who disagree. Completely different.
I don't know who you are, you are an anonymous coward if you were a member here that needs to be respected maybe you should have a username.
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Unless you are in Canada, then they get fed Browns... =P
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Google lost its "white hat" aura a long, long time ago. Although I think you are comically hyperbolic when you say they are "the most insidious privacy-invader since the Stasi and the worst monopoly position abuser since Standard Oil", google is a megacorp and being one of the less-unpleasant megacorps doesn't alter that.
But your fixation on google and their lack of public stance on CISPA is very, very odd to me, particularly in comment on a post that doesn't have anything to do with that.
It's almost like you have some sort of ulterior motive, some mindless anti-google agenda so strong that you are trying to whip up anti-google sentiment by making stuff up. I know that can't be true, because that would just make you a troll.
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"contextual wrapping the "licence" within the scope of providing the service advertised would also allow them do what they need to do to provide the service, without taking more rights than they actually need."
Google over stepped the bounds with their blanket auto licencing
drop box didn't
You argued they "need" to have that "blanket" licence
which is of course patently false
they only need to have a licence for the scope of the service ("again, only to provide the Services")
they put a clause that give them much much more.
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I do get tired of trolls claiming that the reason people are calling them trolls is because they disagree, when the real reason is because they are acting like trolls.
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The great Xerox
On a fundemental level, copyright law is somewhat at odds with just computing in general. That TOS can be considered a manifestation of this basic fundemental tension.
Computers and networks are CONSTANTLY copying things. Even when you aren't "making a copy", it's copying things. It's just the nature of the beast.
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Real life outside of the Internet is equally unforgiving towards acts of idiocy.
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You say "freak out" - I say "due dilligence"
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Double Standards?
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Google Drive TOS
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Re: Double Standards?
fair use allows you to use copyright material WITHOUT the permission of the copyright holder. It the trade off every copyright holder agrees to when they were granted the monopoly rights to CONTROL how their content is distributed in every OTHER case.
Your own argument about not using copyright material EXPLICITLY take away that right away from the public.
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