Yesterday Google launched its Drive cloud service allowing you
to upload virtually anything and have it synced across multiple
devices. Sounds great and bringing a bit more
competition to the mix has never hurt anyone.
But what happens once you store there that music piece you’ve been
working on for so long? Or the concept art for that cool project at
work? Do you still remain its owner and what do you allow the cloud
storage provider to do with it? Google, Microsoft and Dropbox have
different approaches how they handle the legal part of things and it
isn’t something to be taken lightly.
I know, the legal aspect here is as boring as waiting in line at the
post office, but thankfully, you’re in luck, because I am going to make
it short and clear for you. Here’s my scoop on the Google Drive, Dropbox
and SkyDrive’s Terms of Service and the parts that specify what rights
you allow the services on your precious files.
And before we continue, here’s a nice little disclaimer. I have no
law education and this is just my take as an end user so always rely on
your proper judgement regardless of what you see me write here.
Google Drive
As you might remember, Google recently introduced a unified ToS for
all their services and products. This means that Drive gets
automatically covered by the same terms that handle Maps and Gmail.
Here’s the part that bothers many people, me included, in the Google’s
Terms of Service.
Your Content in our Services: 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 that we make so that your content works
better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform,
publicly display and distribute such content.
Did you read it carefully? I hope you did, because it states that
whatever you upload to Google Drive, you grant Google the license to
reproduce,
modify,
create derivative works,
publicly display and distribute such content and even
publish your photos, videos, code or what have you.
But it doesn’t stop there. Oh, no. Here’s what follows right after that paragraph.
The rights that 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 that you have added to
Google Maps).
Since Google doesn’t have a separate ToS for each of its services, it
automatically means that whatever you upload to your Google Drive stays
there. Forever.
There’s also another problem. Read the first sentence from the first quote again. It says that you “give Google (
(and those it works with)
a worldwide license to…” do whatever, basically. Now, who is “those
Google works with”? Why doesn’t the search giant go into a bit more
detail about that?
It’s just sad, really. Not only are we giving Google the right to do
anything they want with our files, but we also give the same benefits to
their “partners”.
Luckily, though, it’s not the end of the world, and here’s why.
Firstly, you retain full ownership of your stuff. Here’s an excerpt of
the same ToS.
You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights
that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays
yours.
This means if you take a great picture of the Eiffel Tower and upload
it to Google Drive, Google can only retouch it a bit, print in on a
very large canvas and put it wherever it wants. But at least it won’t
claim it as its own.
Secondly, it’s only a big deal if you make it so. Why? Because as it
turns out, Google and the rest of the cloud sharing services need to
“modify, create derivative works, publicly display and distribute,
reproduce”, and whatnot your files, because of the technical aspect of
uploading and storing files in the computer cloud.
You see, the “Cloud” is actually a big, noisy and hopefully, not very
steamy Data center, which houses a bunch of servers, where many
industrial-grade hard drives buzz in a perfect harmony. There your files
sit and wait for you. And in order for the service in question to host
them, move them around across various data centers for backups,
revisions and to generally do their work properly, they needs you to
give them all the permissions you could ever imagine.
Harmless things like generating a web gallery with thumbnails out of
your photo album, translating a Word document in a bunch of different
languages and sharing files with friends could get Google, Dropbox and
Microsoft sued if they don’t explicitly ask for those rights beforehand.
Dropbox
Dropbox experienced the problem of losing its users’ trust a while
ago, when it needed to update its Terms of Service because of the
aforementioned technical reasons. Initially, the users went berserk as
Dropbox failed to describe in a more easy-to-understand words what
license it was getting on the files.
After countless debates and numerous editing, here’s what Dropbox came up with.
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.
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.
Now that’s definitely more down-to-earth language and doesn’t get in
your face as a lawyer’s chit-chat over breakfast. But behind the
friendly talk could hide something potentially dangerous. In fact, you
give Dropbox
permission to do whatever they want with your files as long as its for running their service.
This doesn’t sound much different than Google Drive now, does it?
SkyDrive
As part of Microsoft, the SkyDrive service falls under the global
Terms of Service the corporation adheres to. Let’s see if you can spot a
trend here.
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.
You understand that Microsoft may need, and you hereby grant
Microsoft the right, to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute, and
display content posted on the service solely to the extent necessary to
provide the service.
Yes, Microsoft just like Google Drive and Dropbox has a solid team of
lawyers, who have done their homework and have ensured the companies
they work for won’t get in any legal trouble.
Conclusion
In order to not get sued from every possible angle and to make their
service work as well as possible, Microsoft, Google and Dropbox (and
possibly the other cloud storage players) have unfortunately granted
themselves full rights over our files, photos, documents, videos, etc.
This doesn’t mean, however, that they will start doing whatever they
wish with it and draw mustaches on your every photo or mess up your code
just for the fun of it. That would spell disaster for any company that
deals with user information.
So ultimately, using any of the cloud services is a test of your
faith. Are you ready to trust Google, Dropbox or Microsoft with your
files and believe that one of them will stick to its motto of not going
evil on you?
Winning someone’s trust is the most difficult thing in the world and
it should be the leading goal behind all the actions of these companies.
Because the company that manages to earn your trust first, is the one
that would snatch the spot of the King of the Cloud.
