
Chrome's EULA ridiculous - grants Google license to all the content you submit - mati
http://tapthehive.com/discuss/This_Post_Not_Made_In_Chrome_Google_s_EULA_Sucks
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gojomo
This is similar to the situation where, for at least a little while, the EULA
for Safari on Windows only allowed its use on 'Apple-labeled' computers.

I find it oddly reassuring that companies don't pay any more attention to
EULAs than users.

~~~
stcredzero
They probably threw it over the wall to an apathetic and clueless legal staff.
Looks like Google took a server-oriented web application EULA and slapped it
on Chrome.

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enomar
A new EULA has been posted...

<http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html>

11\. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content
which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

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streety
For open source software the clause I found most odd was "10.2 You may not
(and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work
of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source
code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted
or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do
so by Google, in writing."

The incompatibility of this is covered by clause 1.2, ". . . Open source
software licences for Google Chrome source code constitute separate written
agreements. To the limited extent that the open source software licences
expressly supersede these Universal Terms, the open source licences govern
your agreement with Google . . ."

It's still odd though.

~~~
aggieben
yup...just proves the suspicion: the software guys just copy/pasted some
boilerplate and inserted a few specific clauses without re-reading the whole
document or double-checking what it really says.

The OP is correct, though: Google has an army of lawyers and should have
caught this.

~~~
noonespecial
Google should spend ts considerable resources coming up with a "compiler" for
legal docs. You just type in s few one line sentences describing the rights
you'd like to have and the compiler checks for consistency errors and then
generates a legal document (probably 100 pages long) filled with all of the
right "magic words".

~~~
alex_c
Google Law... now THAT would be an undertaking.

If Google's goal is to organize the world's information, law is definitely
some of the most opaque information for non-specialists.

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sfamiliar
sometimes i wonder if the executives ever read their own legal documents. i
read every legal document i sign or agree to, because to not do so opens up
risk. but before they're released, legal documents should be vetted by a
number of people in the company, especially those who are technically
inclined. it often feels like many legal docs, terms of use documents, aup's
and what not are written by lawyers who really don't understand the essence of
what they're doing.

and clearly, there is a class of lawyer who's testing the boundaries of
intellectual property law. too little of this has been challenged and brought
to court.

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invisible
Perhaps the dumbest thing of all is bloggers don't actually read up before
posting blogs like this particular one. One of the developers debunked the
idea, he listed when the browser communicates with Google ( here:
<http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-communication/> ), and he
insisted that they hold no rights in a public blog post that can be cited by
any two-bit lawyer from the way-back-machine. Scandalous of them, huh?

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andreyf
That's about as enforceable as signing away your first-born.

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partoa
My greatest surprise in all this is that people actually read EULAs.

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litewulf
The official line right now is that the legal team at Google is aware of the
situation and is taking a look.

Yay legal!

~~~
Agathos
And where were they when this was written in the first place?

~~~
misterbwong
My guess would be that this EULA was derived from a boilerplate Google EULA
with a search/replace done on it. Apparently, it's very similar to the Google
Docs EULA.

~~~
jsmcgd
Google own all my google docs?

~~~
boredguy8
Read before you freak.

Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges
and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your
licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post,
transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual
property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to
be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist).
Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you
are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has
no obligation to do so on your behalf.

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content
which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting,
posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable,
worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt,
modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute
any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute
and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in
the Additional Terms of those Services.

~~~
spon
Google allows you to retain copyright over your content. That's great. So if
you send a copy of your manuscript to your publisher using Chrome, you
technically will always be "the owner." You can still earn royalties from your
content, and enter into contracts with publishers or other parties that want
to license your content.

But Google will still have a "perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free,
and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish,
publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you
submit, post or display on or through" the browser.

Usually, when we own rights to something, it gives us the power to do all
those things without being bothered by someone else.

So in layman's terms, this essentially makes them "co-owner" of your content.
They can license it to others, collect revenues (albeit not technically
"royalties") from its sale, copy it at will, alter it at will. They don't have
to have your permission to do any of this.

And that's just the intellectual property side. Forget about privacy with
regard to your personal life or with regard to trade secrets.

~~~
boredguy8
They actually don't have the rights to license it to others. They're not co-
owners, nor do they pretend to be, hence "You retain copyright and any other
rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or
through, the Services."

But their license justly protects them from being sued because you uploaded a
video to YouTube that became a hit, and then you decide you want to sue them
because they're hosting a video you submitted but now want to charge people
for.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

~~~
spon
According to the Terms, Google has the right to "publish, publicly perform,
publicly display and distribute," your book.

They also have the right to "make such Content available to other companies,
organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships."

Licensing by any other name.

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enomar
Settle down. It appears they just used the default EULA that comes with all
their "Services". They have since realized that they need a different EULA.
You'll probably see a new (retroactive) Chrome EULA come out shortly.

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boredguy8
These are the universal terms of service that apply to all Google products:
<http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS>. It's entirely reasonable given that it
limits what they can use and it protects them against, say, Pepsi uploading a
document on Google Docs then suing Google for hosting that document.

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MicahWedemeyer
Let's release Lawrence Lessig on these guys. That guy knows what it really
means to "do no evil"

