Google Drive is a cloud storage and sync service from Google and is an extension of Google Docs. Google Drive gives the user 5 gigabytes to start with and offers extra storage for a low monthly rate. In the article, “Will Google Drive Snoop Inside Your Data? Google Needs To Be Clearer”, privacy issues are discussed. Also proposed in the article is a “by permission only” clause to be built into the license agreement to protect user privacy.
In the blanket license for Google Drive Google states:
“The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.”
In its “terms of service” Google continues:
“You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.”
The information in this article suggests Google may have built loop holes into their blanket license agreement for their own use for future gain. When a service offers cloud storage of personal data privacy of that data should be guaranteed and the number one objective. We ask what is the fair exchange for the “free” service and the pay-back for offering the storage space in a land where nothing is “free” and consumers pay less attention to their own privacy in the glittering gold of social networking and cloud computing?
Sandy McIntosh, May 9, 2012
