Comment by q2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by q2 | Hacker News Reader

Implicit expectation of any storage service is, data will remain private and when we remove data from there, it won't exist anywhere on Google systems in any form.

Unfortunately, Google terms and conditions says, http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

"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). "

i.e. if we store data there, we are using their service and we are giving Google "rights of ownership" permanently even after we stop using their service in future. It is definitely not good.

How can anyone give license of their personal stuff to third party?

It will be better if there is a standalone storage service which just stores,backups securely and forgets us when we opt out of their service. As far as I understand, Google drive won't fit in there. Their appetite for our personal information for advertising is not comforting.

If I misunderstood their terms, I am willing to change.

> How can anyone give license of their personal stuff to third party?

How could they possibly operate a service that has as one of its primary features sharing and copying of your content, if you didn't give them a license to do that? This is standard boilerplate for just about any service that accepts user generated content for just about any reason.

If this is the standard boilerplate, then standard needs to be changed :). Why a "pure" storage service needs to do following?

1. "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."

2. Why they should have data even after we stop using their Services?

Users may want just storage but no integration/lock-in with their services. Google can offer "opt-in/opt-out" mechanism from their services. Is n't it?

1. might be for automatically creating a .pdf from a .doc file at a URL you can then share with others. The doc->pdf conversion falls under the "reproduce, modify, create derivative works" legalese, and the URL creation that others can access through the autogenerated "secret" (which isn't, legally, it's public) falls under the "communicate, publish..." legalese. I'm taking this explanation from a similar one that Dropbox themselves (IIRC) published about their own terms of service that had users outraged!

However, I fully agree with you about the suspicious point 2.

This is CYA boilerplate for all services and sounds worse than it is.

1. Reproduce = spread your data on multiple regions/drives/computers/etc inside their data storage systems Modify = format changes Create derivative works = automatic translation, format changes etc publish = show your files to people publicly perform = show your files to people (for video) publicly display = show your files to people (images) distribute = show your files to people

2. Because their datacenter cannot delete files instantly, another CYA point that prevents people from unsubscribing and suing if their files don't disappear the same instant they click the button.

All of that is just shitty legalese that attempts to prevent frivolous lawsuits, and every time some engineer takes it literally and assumes the worst.

Those all seem like fairly standard requirements to operate at Google's scale and interoperate with their services - publicly perform seems kinda dangerous but I trust Google not to show secret data in a keynote. They are broad, but they also restrict to for their services, which are also broad but does presumably mean if they stop offering any relevant service they're not going to have a license to use your data for something else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com