

Google Drive vs. Dropbox Terms of Service - zachh
http://curiousrat.com/home/2012/4/24/google-drive-terms-vs-dropbox-terms.html

======
Xuzz
On the other hand, this post from The Verge explains what is actually going
on: [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)

The important quote: "Looking at some of Google's competitors, it's clear that
they need the exact same permissions — they just use slightly more artful
language to communicate them."

All of these services need similar permissions, as do most web services: it's
just an artifact of how our copyright law works. Google does a bad job of
expressing that reality as nicely as others (like Dropbox), but with almost
equivalent permissions, I'd put them pretty far down on the list of companies
not to trust.

~~~
rfugger
Google's is worse because it takes all rights to use your work however it
likes, and then states in its privacy policy that it won't use it for anything
other than to provide the service. But if it likes, it can amend the privacy
policy in the future to remove or modify that limitation. So you have to trust
Google, which may be fine now, but what about in 20 years? They have rights to
your work forever.

Other providers clearly state that they are only taking rights to your work
for the purpose of providing the service, right in the ToS. IANAL, but this
seems important.

~~~
Xuzz
I'm confused. You say Google "states in its privacy policy that it won't use
it for anything other than to provide the service", but that's not good
enough, because they can amend it later to remove that protection.

How is that different from the other providers, who (as you said, again)
"clearly state that they are only taking rights to your work for the purpose
of providing the service"? What is different about them which stops them from
amending their policies?

~~~
adgar
> I'm confused.

No, you're not. You identified a crystal clear double standard in your parent
post.

------
stuartmemo
Complete FUD. Best article I've read on this is from The Verge. Google would
be unable to create backups or thumbnails for example without these rights.

[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)

~~~
ctdonath
Problem is: the rights as worded by Google allow a whole lot more than the
reasonable-use wording by Dropbox. Remember that recent flap about iOS apps
uploading users' entire Contacts list for non-relevant uses? hey, users gave
permission for the apps to access that data without explicit limits; same
idea, same concerns.

~~~
capo
No. If they are to enable you to share a document you need to give them
license to do so. If they are to create copies of the files across datacenters
and employ OCR on images and use that to improve their algorithms, they need
to inlucde that in their terms of service to avoid getting sued.

~~~
sixothree
"use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works[...],
communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such
content."

That's very different from what you are describing.

~~~
yesbabyyes
I'm not so sure about that. Use, host, store, reproduce are no-brainers.
Modify and create derivative works are for thumbnails, OCRing, converting to
other formats for displaying. The rest are for sharing with friends, or the
world, right?

Edit: Read stuartmemo's The Verge article if you're interested, it's pretty
insightful.

~~~
ctdonath
As phrased, the agreement would let Google publish, for open searchable access
by the world, all files from all users. Indeed, methinks Google's whole
underlying goal in all their endeavors is to mine data they'd not get thru
other means. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe Google
_isn't_ (or just hasn't gotten there but intends to someday) scouring every
GMail, every Chrome OS click, every OCRed image (even every snapshot just in
case some text may be discerned), etc. to feed back into their grand ads-
placed-via-data-mining profit center - it's just what they _do_ ; they may not
do it (yet) in any way revealing private details, but they're sure not
providing all these free services and tools out of sheer good will.

You're thinking in terms of what reasonable uses the terms apply to. The
problem is what UNreasonable uses are allowed by those who consent to those
terms. Publish the entire private works (at least those docs stored on Google
Drive) of yesbabyyes in a collectable volume? you agreed to it...

~~~
abraham
> As phrased, the agreement would let Google publish, for open searchable
> access by the world, all files from all users.

This would be corporate suicide and Google won't do this unless they fall to
the current status of the like of AOL. At which point we will all have moved
on to the next shiny object.

~~~
streptomycin
You may move on, but their backups of your data won't.

------
7c8011dda3f3b
"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."

~~~
cavilling_elite
Its the derivative works that I am worried about. But in context it may just
be "thumbnails" or other things for searching content.

~~~
rryan
Editing a shared Google Docs document is inherently creating derivative works.
You and anyone editing with you are asking Google to change the original
document via HTTP requests. Each edit is a derivative work of the original
document you uploaded to Google Docs, so of course Google needs to be allowed
to do this as part of its license to use your data.

------
chwahoo
I do agree that Dropbox's wording is much friendlier, but I attribute most of
the difference to Google having big plans (e.g., searching and sharing) and
being careful that their terms will permit them. I suspect a big part of this
is Google's intention to analyze your data to make it indexed/searchable
(e.g., their 'search for Mt. Everest and get back your pictures of it'
features).

~~~
ajross
Really, the difference seems to be almost _exclusively_ wording. Both licenses
grant very broad powers to the service to redistribute (Google is guilty only
of enumerating them more fully, where Dropbox simply claims "all the
permissions we need"). Both providers include language that they will only do
this in order "to provide the service", but neither enumerates exactly what
that means.

Does anyone see anything specific that Dropbox _can't_ do that Google can?
That grant looks really broad to me, just ... friendlier.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
What people are noticing is perceived intent. Dropbox is clear what their
intent is. Google is less clear. People like clarity, especially ewhen dealing
with personal items.

~~~
ajross
Google: "The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of
operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."

Dropbox: "You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to
provide the Services."

I'm not sure there's any difference in intent or clarity here. I think it's
clear that Dropbox is _nicer_ about it. And because their product is smaller
in scope maybe the rights they reserve seem less scary.

But really, I think this is a giant kerfuffle over nothing (fueled in no small
part by the "Dropbox is on the HN team" feeling here). These licenses look
almost 100% equivalent to me.

~~~
nooop
What isn't clear in "promoting" the Services?

Google can broadcast TV ads with your private photos if they want to.

~~~
ajross
No, they can't; don't be silly. That's not what "promoting" means, and in any
case such a use would be a clear copyright violation (note elsewhere in the
license where they make it clear that you still own the copyright). It seems
clear to me that the intent is things like the Youtube "recommended" list. If
you upload a public video, they need permission to repackage it for display in
other contexts than direct viewing.

But if you insist on reading the license that uncharitably, you have to accept
that _Dropbox too_ can find plenty of wiggle room to be evil. Seriously,
you're granting "all needed permissions" without enumeration -- you don't find
that scary? What if Dropbox decides that "providing the service" requires
revenue gained from scraping credit card numbers from stored files? See? I can
come up with equally silly scenarios.

------
sangaya
That's standard wording allowing them to provide the content to you on any
device you access the services from over the internet (i.e. publicly).

[http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22a+w...](http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22a+worldwide+license+to+use%2C+host%2C+store%2C+reproduce%2C+modify%2C+create+derivative+works%22+-Google)

------
cabirum
Y no one compares them to skydrive?

«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.»

« we may access or disclose information about you, including the content of
your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful
requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or
our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies
governing your use of the service; or (c) act on a good faith belief that such
access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of [ppl]»

------
timothya
There's been several articles on this topic, and I don't understand why they
all seem to ignore this line in Google's TOS: "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."

These terms are across all of Google's services, and of course they need to
state these sorts of things to keep themselves covered.

~~~
demetris
“I don't understand why they all seem to ignore this line in Google's TOS.”

Because not many people are good at reading and at understanding what they
read.

Which, here, is this:

Gmail or Google Docs/Drive or Google Apps are not among Google’s services that
“allow you to submit content”. You don’t submit anything to them. A service
like YouTube, on the other hand, is, and it obviously needs such terms in
order to operate.

------
ceejayoz
Dropbox had the same issue in 2011. Their TOS was very similar to Google
Drive's, for the same reasons - lawyers putting CYA language in.

<http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=846> <http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=867>

~~~
NelsonMinar
Yeah, and Dropbox fixed it after public complaint. It's amazing to me Google
would launch with a license with the same problem.

~~~
ceejayoz
Frankly, I'd be surprised if Drive didn't get an addendum to the TOS to
address the concerns. Lawyers don't often have 24 hour turnarounds on this
sort of change.

------
nateberkopec
The exact same language is in the _Google_ terms of service, so if you use
Gmail, your emails are covered by the same language.

Clearly, this is lawyer boilerplate being taken out of context.

<http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/>

~~~
brudgers
_"if you use Gmail"_

Yes, Gmail has the same issue. Google can use your data "to develop new
services" for it's own benefit.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Google can use your data "to develop new services" for it's own benefit.

Which sounds nasty, until you realize they potentially need such language to
be able to do something as simple as implementing a better spam filter, or
offline syncing for your e-mail.

~~~
brudgers
That doesn't however explain why they need such language for drive.

Furthermore, Google could, like dropbox, limit their use of your data to
providing or improving the services they provide you. Spam filtering and
syncing resonably fall in that category.

~~~
ceejayoz
> That doesn't however explain why they need such language for drive.

Google just recently went through a unification of their disparate privacy
policies, terms of service, etc. I also don't see why Google wouldn't want to
add services to Drive down the road...

~~~
brudgers
Unification of Google's privacy policies was done for Google's benefit.

Furthermore, as an explanation for why these policies should apply to drive,
it begs the question.

~~~
ceejayoz
There's a significant benefit to users from having fewer policies applying to
Google's many services.

------
judofyr
_We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff,
for example [..]. This includes [..]. It also includes [..]. You give us the
permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services._

So I give Dropbox full access to do _things with my stuff_? Seriously? IANAL,
but doesn't that include more than what Google says?

Also note that Google has this line (you know, _just_ above the paragraph that
was quoted in the article): _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._

~~~
ceejayoz
> So I give Dropbox full access to do things with my stuff?

Why'd you leave out the "things you ask us to do" bit?

"You give us permission to kick you in the balls" sounds bad in a contract if
you leave out the "because you're signing up to become a mixed martial arts
combatant" bit, too.

------
cageface
I'm actually not so worried about the privacy of the files I might put in
GDrive. The handful of files I really care about (financial data etc) I store
in other ways.

But I _am_ worried about having my Google account yanked out from under me.
I'm simply not willing to depend on one capricious company with no customer
support for email, phone, storage, online collaboration, chat, social etc.
Ironically the harder Google tries to squeeze all their services together the
less inclined I am to use any individual service.

------
NelsonMinar
If I understand Google's ToS right, you are giving them a license to do pretty
much anything with the data you upload to Drive. For instance, if you backup
your git repo to Drive, Google's engineers have a license to take your source
code and incorporate it into their own products. Now of course Google's not
actually going to _do_ that. So why not make the license say that?

Google is using a generic ToS for all their products, but it's not appropriate
to products that host valuable intellectual property.

~~~
tomkarlo
Because it's impractical to create a TOS that defines all possible ways they
might need to use that data in order to provide the service (from any court's
viewpoint) but also explicitly carve out that usage. If re-using the code as
you posit is indistinguishable (legally) from a valid use of the data they
need in order to provide the service, they're not going to carve it out of the
TOS. It's better to not attempt that, and let you (as the customer) pick if
you're okay with that. If you find the risk unacceptable, don't use the
service. To some degree that's a better outcome than exposing the host to a
ton of legal risk.

------
Zaim3
Looks like Google accidentally started two memes this month: #whitespace and
#selectivelyquoteprivacypolicy

------
orbitingpluto
While it's obvious Google isn't planning to rape, pillage and publish your
private files, their terms of service are starting on the wrong foot.

Ask for the base permissions you need and work from there. This is even more
important when you're not a Google. Explain what you need and why to give them
what they want from you, earn their trust and karma.

More importantly, if you sell off your company later, they will protect your
users from those who might take a more liberal view of the TOS.

------
ryanisinallofus
Dropbox writing their TOS in a way that non-lawyers can read it was a good
move here. Neither TOS really effects anything being done with your data in a
practical way but the PR Dropbox is getting from theirs is worth 100x the time
they put into it. Nice investment.

------
aresant
If you're truly concerned about your data integrity build a TrueCrypt volume
within the Goog Drive / Dropbox.

Despite what the TOS says on either end there are always going to be breaches,
court orders, or potentially even employees with the power to access your
files.

~~~
recoiledsnake
So if you want to change one bit, the whole freaking volume has to be uploaded
again?

~~~
jongraehl
Disk encryption is usually block-based.

(disclaimer: I know nothing about TrueCrypt).

------
nicholassmith
It's the derivative works part of the T&Cs for GDrive that makes it a little
wonky, I don't want to give them full license to create _any_ derivative work
but I'm happy with them making changes for technical architecture.

But that's so selective and does miss the part where they say your content and
copyright is all yours, so it justifies picking on Google for being supposedly
creepy.

~~~
mangodrunk
As others have mentioned, it probably is about producing thumbnails of images
or something like that.

>You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the
Services.

This give Dropbox the ability to modify your images to create thumbnails as
well if that's a part of their service. It also allows them to do whatever
else they want without being explicit and hiding behind vague wording.

------
sturmeh
Amendment of a Privacy Policy doesn't retroactively apply the policy to all
the data previously provided to the service without first consulting the user.

If that is the case then they need to make the user ACCEPT the new terms
before this can be done. (This is what is happening whenever you are forced to
accept an amended TOS before returning to a service.)

------
haraldk
One thing is that the phrasing of Google's terms is more open, more
importantly: I would rather like to store my files with someone that are in
the business of storing files - than someone that is in the business of making
"everything" searchable (for anyone?)

------
sampsonjs
If any of this blather is an attempt to prevent me from giving my money to
Google instead of Dropbox, mission failed. Pay 2 to 4 times as much for the
same service? I don't think so. Google wins, T. K. O., pwned with a capital P.

------
xxiao
can I encrypt it first...

------
joejohnson
I think this image nicely compares the TOS for Dropbox, Google Drive and
Microsoft's Sky Drive:
[https://twitter.com/#!/jmacdonald/status/195184740209401856/...](https://twitter.com/#!/jmacdonald/status/195184740209401856/photo/1)

------
bluetidepro
Yup. This is EXACTLY what I knew Google would try to pull. There is no way I'm
switching from Dropbox to one of the shadiest online companies out there.

~~~
andybak
Sounds a little tin-foil hat to me. Care you justify your hyperbole?

~~~
bluetidepro
[https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&#...</a> (PUN intended
on using Google to show you some of many complaints towards their policies...)

~~~
ceejayoz
<https://www.google.com/search?q=bluetidepro%20bad%20policies>

~~~
bluetidepro
DID lol.

