Cloud storage Terms of Service comparison: Avoid Google Drive | Hacker News Reader

Cloud storage Terms of Service comparison: Avoid Google Drive

theverge.com

53 pointsRaiderrobert21 comments

This is so wrong. If you read the comments, or any of the actual terms of service, you'll notice the author is actually cutting out the parts that make these TOSes all identical. For instance, the Google one has: "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." right before the paragraph that is highlighted in this article.

See: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2972228/cloud-storage-term... for the excluded parts of the other TOSes.

I don't think it's about retaining ownership, necessarily. With all of the services, your data remains yours.

But reading the full paragraphs, it seems to me that DropBox's TOS say they won't use the user's data for things like advertisements.

Google's TOS makes it pretty clear that uploading to Google Drive gives them a license to use and publish the data any way they want, as long as it's stored in Google Drive.

Exactly, not to mention that these are the TOS for all Google services and key language in that text specify that some services are treated differently:

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services

Google Apps accounts have different TOS all together: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/standard_terms.html

Imagine if Google released a service where, for $5 a month you received different terms of service, owned your data contractually and, just for fun, got to turn off ads in gmail?

They already did. It's Google Apps. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/premier_terms.html

For less than $5 a month I get completely different terms of service than Google's standard gmail accounts. I get a lot of other interesting control options as well in the Apps dashboard.

I really disapprove of the Google terms in the free accounts, but $5 a month is a no brainer. Unlike facebook, I find Google docs to be worth having, if for no other reason than collaboration. It's also worth a small fee for me to have contractual ownership of my hosted data.

Do they actually have support for Premier? I would pay $5/mo to know they won't randomly disable my account (or if they do, I can talk to someone).

There is but I've never used it. I feel generally safer with a paid account not being disabled but I certainly don't depend on it not disappearing.

Initially I set this up not for the terms of service and support, but back when it was the only way to get two factor. Apps often lags behind other google services, but there are areas in which it is either ahead or superior, often related to security/privacy.

You do own your data. Google never claims to own your data.

Correct. They are declaring a license to do what they want with it. Sort of like you owning a car and me declaring a license to drive it if, say, you park in my driveway, which might be a fair trade. In that case, you are better off renting a monthly parking spot.

This is FUD. Read PepperoniJack's comment to the article (at http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2972228/cloud-storage-term... ) that points out that the TOS excerpts were taken out of context.

Oh look, it's the same necessary boilerplate we've seen in a thousand other online services. Let's tear it out of context and make false comparisons (see comments on the article) so we can paint Google as eeeeeeeeevil - instant linkbait.

This crap is getting really tiresome.

"publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content"

Please point out concrete examples of this supposed boilerplate. I'm honestly curious as to where else you've found this, as it strikes me as a very broad term where you give Google the right to do almost anything with whatever you may store.

This comes from them only having one TOS for all there services, it means it must cover everything from maps to YouTube.

Also as its been pointed out in the comets on the artical, Google need the right to publish you works if wish to share a document with someone, as Google are effectively publishing it for you.

The comments on the aritcal also make the good point that the TOS is taken out of context and sounds a lot worse than it is.

While this may be true, is it too much to ask of a company as large as Google to maybe not just slap some boilerplate ToS on their brand new services? Surely they could be a little more specific and allay unnecessary fears while still protecting their own business interests.

Deleted comment

The context of the TOS its self. http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2972228/cloud-storage-term...

is a link to a comment on the acrtical pointing out that the TOS was taken out of context and missed the area before it pointing out that you retain you IP.

It also points out that all 3 companies TOS are prity much identical.

I would guess that this more of an oversight than anything else. There will be some public grumbling about it, and Google will respond by fixing their Terms of Service to look more like the others.

I'm fairly certain they will respond quickly.

I doubt it's an oversight. Google's legal team doesn't miss a beat on stuff like this. If they backtrack it will be an intentional change of an intentional set of terms.

This is just silly. Google should know they are going to get called out on this in 2012.

Also, all of my docs showed up in Drive automatically. Do these terms automatically apply to those docs now too?

  publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content

Lines like this are usually included in terms of service to allow the provider to actually host and distribute that content. It doesn't sound like an ownership clause. It sounds like giving permission to Google to store your data so you can retrieve from anywhere.

And I agree with others, there is no doubt the terms will get tweaked to look like the others. But with one exception: they will include a clause to allow them to index your content for searching and potentially advertising purposes. I don't think most others would have a clause like that. Dropbox can search by filenames, but can they search content as well? I don't think they can.

The Verge's decision to make their forums essentially look exactly like their articles in both design and URL structure is odd. Gives a lot of false credibility to any random.

It's a bit lazy (not to say deceitful) that OP chose not to provide links to the full text, thus ignoring key language and caveats.

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

Your Content in our Services

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.

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. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

You can find more information about how Google uses and stores content in the privacy policy or additional terms for particular Services. If you submit feedback or suggestions about our Services, we may use your feedback or suggestions without obligation to you.

Also it's the Google TOS it's not specific to GDrive.

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