Comment by metaguri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by metaguri | Hacker News Reader

I was guessing that google (in their never-ending desire to consume more data) would want to use us as guinea-pigs to improve their algorithms. It's not 100% clear to me, but from the terms of service:

By submitting, posting, displaying, or transmitting Data on or through the Service, you give Google permission to process your Data for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its privacy policy. You hereby grant Google all licenses to your Data necessary to process the Data and provide you with the Service in accordance with its privacy policy. As a part of the Service and through provided interfaces, Google may allow you to remotely access, view, and download results of the processing of your Data. (via http://code.google.com/apis/predict/docs/terms.html)

I imagine that they might claim the right to use your data anonymously to improve their algorithms, much like they do for your personal data in their other apps. I mean, what better way to refine their supervised learning algorithms than via an endless supply of training sets? But I hate wading through legalese, anyone have any insights?

Did you miss the phrase, for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its privacy policy? That phrase tells me that the ONLY thing they get permission to do with the data is use it for processing your requests.

And they definitely need that. In order to process requests, Google has to make a bunch of copies of your data, create models, etc. Furthermore Google will need to keep copies so that it can use the model it generated for future requests. If the data that you have uploaded is confidential, proprietary, etc, then this requires copyright permission. (Particularly since in the previous clause they made it clear that you retain full copyright.)

No, I did see that, but to zoom in further, what is meant by "in accordance with its privacy policy"?

For Google's other apps, their privacy policy lets them confidentialize and then use data about you to improve their services. Don't see anything that stops them from doing stuff with your data as part of "providing you with the service", without giving up your ownership of it.

Yes, I'm speculating. But it just struck me as a reason for google to offer this service. And honestly, if I were a user I might be ok with them using my data anonymously to improve said service that I am using.

Also from the TOS, in the section directly above the bit you quote:

4.2. Google claims no ownership or control over any of your Data. You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in the Data, and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate.

Using past data to give you better service for future data -- isn't this exactly what you want a prediction algorithm to do?

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