

What's yours stays yours. - Dropbox Terms Update - chromedude
http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=867

======
phillco
Just three months ago Dropbox was the darling of the tech world. Now they're
putting out fires every other day. Just goes to show you how tightly you have
to control your image — and how quickly things can slide out of control.

~~~
staunch
Dropbox is my absolute favorite YC company by far. This appears to be their
biggest weakness to date.

They've done a piss poor job of having a public voice. They don't respond to
things quickly and when they do they're somewhat defensive and dismissive.

The truth is most of the noise actually is bullshit. They know that. The
problem is public perception isn't fair. You can't ignore false hysteria and
expect it to go away. People will form opinions based on headlines alone.

They need to humanize the company. Make sure everyone knows Dropbox is run by
good people who have good intentions. More Google, less Microsoft.

They still have a ton of momentum, but it's all based on word of mouth. If
they lose the warm fuzzy feeling people have about them they will suffer badly
in the long term.

~~~
ma2rten
Actually, I think outside of tech tech world Google might have a worse image
then Microsoft does.

The controversy about Microsoft is long forgotten by most people. Google on
the other hand can come over as quite creepy to non-techies: They offer
something for free, which is always creepy, they harvest all this information
about you and they come of as quite emotionless.

I think Google might have a little bit of the same problem with the general
public, as Dropbox does now in the tech-world. Even though Google is working
on it, with their recent ad campaigns.

~~~
Kylekramer
You really think people outside of the tech world are think offering something
for free is creepy (they seem 100% fine with major TV networks)/know Google is
harvesting info/even think of websites as being emotional? All three of those
seem to be exclusively tech nerd complaints.

------
sriramk
I'm not sure how they plan to stick to this part "we won’t share your content
with others, including law enforcement, for any purpose unless you direct us
to".

If Dropbox gets a sub-poena to hand over some user's content, can they really
ask the user first whether they can share it with law enforcement? I was
involved with some of this stuff back at MSFT and it isn't something you had a
great deal of leeway with.

~~~
molecule
<http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=867#comment-244671740>

~~~
sriramk
In that case, what does the text in my comment mean? If law enforcement is
asking you for content, they'll always have some legal paperwork to back it
up. Those rare exceptions are pretty much the rule when it comes to dealing
with LE.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Not even remotely "always". These days, law enforcement will frequently talk
to a service provider before they have a warrant, and the service provider
will often cooperate without seeing a warrant.

However, the exceptions in Dropbox's ToS and Privacy Policy allow them to do
the same under a broad set of circumstances, not just when required to by a
warrant/subpoena.

------
rodh257
What's yours stays yours... except for when we stuff up the login system and
let anyone login to your account?

Yes I know it was a mistake, but now that you've sorted out the licensing
terms, lets move onto the issue of showing people you have improved your
security model. Many people put pretty important stuff in their Dropbox, prove
them that it will be secure. You need to come out with a blog post outlining
all the new security incentives you are doing to win peoples trust back in
that regard. Perhaps look at offering two factor authentication like Gmail (I
believe they open sourced that), or at least when you setup a new PC to sync
you need email confirmation like Steam. Maybe give people the option of having
'extra secure' dropbox folders that require you to give an extra password to
access.

------
someoneorother
Looks like they took a cue from this on the 1Password forums:
[http://forum.agile.ws/index.php?/topic/5406-dropboxs-
terms-o...](http://forum.agile.ws/index.php?/topic/5406-dropboxs-terms-of-
service/page__view__findpost__p__31152)

~~~
mattmanser
Plenty of us said the same thing, e.g.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2723560>

~~~
someoneorother
Of course. But in this case Dropbox's statement tracks clause by clause, and
there's quite a bit of lexical overlap.

------
pwpwp
What's yours stays yours. Unless somebody knows the hash.
<https://github.com/driverdan/dropship>

~~~
ugh
How is one supposed to know the hash without also having had access to the
file in some way and at some point in time?

If someone else knows the hash of your super secret document they must have
had access to your super secret document or you must have given them the hash.

------
GiraffeNecktie
Seems like they didn't bother testing the first version with actual users (or
an editor) rather than just running it past a lawyer.

~~~
sunchild
I think their lawyers wrote it poorly, and someone at Dropbox approved it too
readily.

------
dlib
From their blogpost/terms of service _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._ I assume they mean discretion instead of direction. A
bit sloppy, especially regarding all the fuzz the new terms gave.

~~~
edanm
Not sure why you think it's discretion.

I assume they're talking about you "directing" them to share a certain file
with other users of Dropbox.

