Does Google Own Your Content?

mjasay writes "ZDNet is reporting that Google has a potentially worrisome clause in its User Agreement for Google Apps. Namely, that any content put into the system and 'intended to be available to the members of the public' is free game for Google, reserving the right for Google 'to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google.' Google may not be evil, but giving it these (and other) rights to one's data should be ringing alarm bells in the Google Apps user base."

Comments

Much Ado About Nothing

[gbulmash]

First off, the first key phrase is "By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public..."

That means that they're not applying this to private content, just stuff you intended to be publicly available.

The second key phrase is "you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license..." Note the words "non-exclusive". That means that Google does not own your content. You own it. They just have the right to use it anywhere in the world for free. The remaining legalese covers their butts for the current methods that might be used to display or distribute the content, and any future methods they might use.

I used to manage the photo submissions at IMDb and we used similar phrasing in our TOS. That way when we created IMDbPro, it could use the photos, we could put them not only in photo galleries related directly to the actor or film, but in themed photo galleries, in news summaries related to the actor, etc. If Amazon sold IMDb, or we merged with another film site, or we started another spin-off site, we'd retain the rights to display and use the photos.

Technology changes quickly and you'll find most large companies that display user-submitted content have the same kind of release. It doesn't deprive the content's owner of ownership, but makes sure that a lot of potential headaches that could come up in relation to the use and display of that content over the years don't come up.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[bariswheel]

I'm just not too fond of the suggestive title of this post.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[Robotech_Master]

Right, it's basically just a CYA stating, "If you post something intended to be viewed by the public, then we reserve the non-exclusive right to show that something to the public."

It's just a big tempest in a teapot stirred up by people who having nothing better to do with their time than look for something else "evil" that Google has done, and will naturally put that spin on anything they find. A bit pathetic, really. Google does more than enough bad stuff already that there's no need to manufacture more, and crying wolf too often detracts from the seriousness of the real bad stuff when it is pointed out.

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[arminw]

.......You do know that if you read the MS EULA you do not OWN the Microsoft Windows product you purchased with HUNDREDS of hard earned Dollars.........

If I buy a product in a store, it doesn't matter what, I OWN it. Ford doesn't make me enter into a so called agreement, nor have they the right, to tell me I can only drive the vehicle they SOLD me on certain roads or only use it to transport certain items or people. I can resell that vehicle or whatever else I bought to anybody at anytime.

What body of law gives MS or other software companies the right to put out EULA crap like this, that supposedly applies to their products, unlike every other product under the sun? Are there special laws that have been created that only apply to their products and no others? Did our paid for legislators create special laws that allows software companies only, unlike every other business, to restrict how their customers may use their stuff?

Re:Much Ado About Nothing

[annachie]

This isn't really "much ado about nothing." Just because I might use a google tool to display my content to the public, doesn't mean that Google should have the right to use my content any way that they wish.

I'm a photographer and if I post samples of my work in a Google app, I might not want Google to use my photos for their advertising. It's silly for people to assume that just because I put my photographs on public display that I should be OK with Google using my photos without paying for the right to use them.

For those people who will say, "well then, don't use the service"...

I won't.

Don't they ALL do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO if you have "content" that is worth something, you should never use a web 2.0 type social site to host it. If your content is worth money, start your own site, or sell it to a site you want to be associated with.

Re:Which content?

[TubeSteak]

But does this apply to gmail?! Is your gmail contents "intended to be available to the members of the public"?

I thought not.

Re:Which content?

[eln]

The summary says any content that is intended to be available to the public, which email pretty much never is.

Even so, I try to avoid using Google or any other online service to host anything of a particularly personal (or business critical) nature. I just don't trust some entity I have no control over to host these sorts of things. Sure, if they screw with my data I may have legal recourse, but whatever they did to my data is already done and likely irreversible, so being able to sue them about it is not much of a consolation.

Hm

[goldaryn]

> put into the system and 'intended to be available to the members of the public' is free game for Google

Oh noes! Your public domain material will be in the public domain!

cf. "Your Rights Online" - if this really bothers you - just don't use it (tm).

Does Google Own My Content?

[JamesRose]

Does slashdot grossly sensationalise stories?

So, pretty typical.

[cromar]

Seems to be the gist of every other EULA I've ever read...

Google is not trying to steal your content

[HangingChad]

You have to trust someone...at least to a point. Google is not trying to steal your content. If you attach a document to email because you're afraid Google will steal it, how many relays does it go through? That's how many other organizations would have the opportunity to steal the content. Trojans, spyware and key loggers can make your own computer vulnerable to snooping. If you keep it on your network storage, you're trusting your sysads and anyone else with access to the file.

And if you're still that worried then encrypt it. For simple text try http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/ and either use the site or download the javascript and make your own page, put it on SSL and even add a random virtual keyboard if you really want to go all out. Pick a pass phrase you can remember. Simple encryption will prevent casual reading, unless you think Google and the NSA are working together to spy on you...in which case you have bigger problems than /. can help with.

If anyone could ever prove Google snooped or stole content their business would evaporate overnight. They're likely very aware of that concern and probably more sensitive to it than you might imagine. Besides, with the volume of material they store, who has time to sit around and read your stuff?

Here we go again ...

[jc42]

It's an old story. People in power find a way to prevent you and me from profiting from our own creations, by controlling the distribution channels.

The music recording industry is the poster child for this. Until recently, selling recordings required expensive production and distribution facilities. The owners of these facilities could say "You want people to hear and buy your music? Sign this contract and we'll make it happen." You might as well sign the contract, because it's the same for all the other distributors. And in the fine print, it says that you assign the copyright to the recording company. The result is that musicians can make a million-selling album and make no money from it at all. This is because the recording companies can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."

Almost all work "for hire" to corporations are of this nature. If you want to be paid, you have to assign ownership to your employer. If you're a university researcher, and you want to be paid, you usually must assign copyright and patents to the university. Unless, that is, you got funding on your own, in which case you must assign copyright and patents to the funder. And if you want your results published, almost all academic publishers have historically required that you assign the copyright to them. "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us."

Now we have a new means of distribution, the Internet. That promised to give us a cheap distribution mechanism that wasn't controlled by the distributors. But For most of us, to use the Internet requires going through something called an "ISP". Those organizations, usually private companies, have a chokehold on your path to the Internet. Early on in the commercialization of the Internet, the ISPs started to realize what they had. Thus, a few years ago, we read the stories of msn.com (owned by Microsoft) using things from customers' web sites commercially. They mostly extracted images and used them in advertising. When customers discovered images of their children being used in ads, they understandably got upset. And msn.com pointed to the clause in the contract saying that any customer files stored on msn.com machines became the property of msn.com. After a bit of adverse publicity, the "gave in", in the sense that they publicly announced that they wouldn't do this again. But this was like any corporate promise: It was PR to mollify the current crowd of upset customers. After a while, people started noticing that that clause was still in the TOS. And it can be summarized as "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."

So this story is nothing new. ISPs are more and more realizing that they have a chokehold on customers' channel to the rest of the world. Most people have only one ISP, which is a legal monopoly. Even when there are two, they can easily make sure that their contracts are identical. Like various monopolists/oligopolists of the comm channels before them, they can say "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing."

It now seems like google, the "Do no evil" company, has realized the same thing. They can provide customers useful tools that inprove people's access to the Internet. And they can hide "If you want your stuff distributed, you must give it to us" in their contract. You can't go to the competition, because their contracts say the same thing.

The only way around this is regulation that denies the controllers of the Internet any ownership of things that pass through their machines. But this sort of regulation has never been effective for any past distribution system. There's no reason to expect that it will be effective for the Internet.

So much for your rights to your own creations. Get used to it; it's the future. Just like the past.