
Why I'm Sticking With Dropbox (Over Google Drive) - cobychapple
http://blog.cobychapple.com/blog/2012/04/26/why-im-sticking-with-dropbox-over-google-drive/
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modeless
Selective quoting. The very next sentence says:

 _The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of
operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones._

Furthermore: _You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that
you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours._

The Verge compared privacy policies and concluded that they are not actually
much different: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-
terms...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-terms-
privacy-data-skydrive-dropbox-icloud)

~~~
cobychapple
You're right, I did zero in on a few lines there, but I also don't like the
idea of anybody using my content to promote their services or to develop new
services based on what I upload. Operating their services? No problem there.

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brntn
I saw people discussing this earlier on Twitter and I agree that the Dropbox
TOS _sounds_ better than the Google one.

My problem is that Dropbox does everything that is highlighted in this post as
a reason not to use Google Drive. If anything, the Dropbox TOS reduces clarity
by "hiding" that they do these things.

> use, host, store, reproduce

Well yeah, that's what the service is designed to do. Dropbox does all of
those things.

> modify, create derivative works

Something as simple as creating a thumbnail of a JPEG is modifying/deriving
your files. Dropbox most certainly does that.

> communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute

Again, this allows them to show you your data in multiple ways that exist now
or may exist in the future. Again, Dropbox does all of these things too.

I honestly think that Google should have added "We will never sell, give away
or allow partners to access your files without permission" to the top of their
new TOS. It would clear all of this nonsense up.

~~~
cobychapple
Like I said, I'm no lawyer—so I'm sure that the Dropbox TOS is probably quite
similar from a legal point of view, however it's the apparent intent that they
go to the trouble of attempting to convey that makes the difference to me.

~~~
Locke1689
You like that they're hiding that they're claiming the exact same rights over
your data?

It sounds like you're just finding an intellectual justification to support a
predetermination that Google must be doing bad things with your data -- even
though they're doing the same thing.

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amartya916
The Verge did a piece about privacy policies:
[http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-
terms...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/2973849/google-drive-terms-
privacy-data-skydrive-dropbox-icloud)

Not very conclusive but Nilay highlighted the fact that while Dropbox's terms
seem friendlier, in legalese, it's perhaps has more leeway.Also, he mentions
that Google's unified policy means that they have to be extra verbose/careful
about this. For example, if I can attach large documents from my Google drive
while e-mailing from my Gmail account (basically not have to upload it from
the local system), I'll consider that to be an interesting value addition; but
that'll require me to give Google the right to move files between their
servers, maybe compress it etc. This is a hypothetical example.

I trust Google as much as I trust Dropbox (which is to say that I'm cautious)
and I expect Google to refine their offering as well as their policy over
time.

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ardillamorris
I will not stick to dropbox just because of some general and broad legal
mumbo-jumbo. The truth is, both services are identical in terms of their
intention to hosting your files. However, I cancelled my account today with
dropbox for three reasons:

1) 5gb over 3gb I had at dropbox 2) Integration with gmail - you have to
admit, this is awesome 3) Integration with google docs. I don't use excel or
word anymore. I use google spreadsheets and docs. Now that ALL my stuff is in
google drive, I no longer have to separate office-styled documents from
pictures, videos and other files. All of them in one place is just amazing.

There's no doubt dropbox was innovative, but since I'm every day on
google/gmail/docs - there's no reason for me to use/login to another service.

~~~
DivisibleByZero
I think this will be why Google Drive ends up taking over this space. The ease
of integration is what made dropbox so great in the first place. Now Google is
taking integration a step further.

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pazimzadeh
I prefer Dropbox because it's better integrated on the Mac — it doesn't break
Quick Look, for instance.

~~~
cobychapple
Totally agree. It sucks how all the Google docs format files can't be
previewed (i.e. with OSX's quick look) or opened using desktop applications.

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zalew
oh boy, not again...

the db terms were the same, they rephrased it when the exact same panic rant
about terms was raised all over the internet.

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railsjedi
This looks like their YouTube license. I think they need to amend it
specifically for Google Drive.

I seriously doubt this is anything more than a stupid omission on their part.
They'll fix it and won't be doing anything notorious with your data.

Though Google.. I'd appreciate if you didn't "publicly perform" my google
docs. kthx

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epaga
So frustrating to see people are not learning from the past that these
legalese phrases are NEVER as bad as they sound.

It seems this never gets old, does it? How often has this phrasing caused
issues - and then when it's clarified it turns out it's just paranoid legalese
giving them the right to show you your content to yourself on a public
internet terminal etc.

I can recall these "Oh no! Read the terms!" articles for at least Dropbox,
Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, maybe for others. Each time it turns out to
be harmless.

Seriously - do you REALLY think Google a) wants the rights to publicly perform
your MP3s or display your pictures and b) even if they did, that they're
stupid enough to think this wouldn't cause an outrage.

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rdtsc
Also there is UbuntuOne. Also 5GB. I love it and have been using it for a
while. Granted I only use it between Ubuntu machines and then access stuff
online via the Web interface. Also integrated pretty well with the file
browser.

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jtchang
It's scary that we are seeing how quickly the market is moving in this space.

First they competed for feature parity and there was bloodshed.

Then they went tried to woo us with their usability and we were in awe.

In the end price was all that was left and they scorched everything in their
path.

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cobychapple
Just to clarify: I'm sure that from a legal point of view the terms of both
applications are similar. As a legal layman though, it's the apparent intent
that makes me feel better about using Dropbox.

