Terms of Service may go a bit too far in giving content to search giant
Now that Google has rolled out their competitor to Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, and both the Dropbox folks and Microsoft have made adjustments in their products to respond to what Google offers, let’s take a step back to see what the newcomer is bringing to the table. Most obvious is the capability to use the cloud to store everything you do in Google Docs – making it accessible from anywhere and making Google’s offering conceptually similar to the other cloud-based storage offerings.
James Titcomb of the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9223583/Google-Drive-iCloud-Dropbox-SkyDrive-and-Box-comparison.html) has a comparison of basic features between these three products, as well as Box and iCloud. The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/apr/25/google-drive-cloud-storage-compared) also has a nice comparison.
However, before choosing between the products, you may also want to look at the terms of service for each. Mark Kaelin of Tech Republic (http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/maybe-it-is-time-you-actually-read-that-google-drive-terms-of-service/1072) points out some interesting observations.
Most people, myself included, don’t always read all the way through the terms of service for any product – they tend to be long and legalese. But Google Drive’s terms of service should be read – as while you “own” your uploaded files, it grants the company a license to do “as it wants” with your uploaded content. Basically, there is no boundary to keep Google from using what it likes from whatever you uploaded to its service.
ZDNet also discusses this at https://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/how-far-do-google-drives-terms-go-in-owning-your-files/75228.
You can find the terms of service for Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Google Drive at http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2972228/cloud-storage-terms-of-service-comparison-avoid-google-drive. (Based on the title of that article, the author has obviously drawn his own conclusions.)
It can pay to read the (painfully) fine print, as you can then make a more informed decision on what you want to do.
