Friday, May 04, 2012

What is Google doing with the contents of your hard drive?

When you hear the phrase "property rights," you probably think of farmers fighting environmental regulators and homeowners arguing with oil drillers. But in the Information Age, you should also be thinking about your computer - and asking, how much of you is really yours?

Last week's big technology announcement spotlighted the thorny question. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Google's announcement of its Google Drive came with the promise that users will "retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content." But when you save files to Google's hard-drive folder in the cloud, the terms of service you must agree to gives Google "a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute (your) content" as the company sees fit.

When asked about this, Google argued that its provisions merely "enable us to give you the services you want - so if you decide to share a document with someone, or open it on a different device, you can."

As reassuring as that seems, though, it's not that simple. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Privacy matters even if you have " nothing to hide"
  2. The man who knows everything...
  3. If you have done nothing wrong, you don't have to worry, right?
  4. If you've done nothing wrong, you have everything to worry ...
  5. The real price of "free" online services...
  6. FBI in the process of creating a system for monitoring all conversations ...
  7. What your computer knows about you can be dangerous...
  8. Big Brother is closing in, but it's not too late to fight back...
  9. Facebook, apps and You. The battle to own your data..

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