In the past few days I’ve seen about 10 stories like this that claim Google “owns” your content submitted to docs and spreadsheets. Too bad those stories are misleading and are only telling half of the story.
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. Google reserves the right 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 furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.
For starters, Sentence #1 clearly states Google does not own your content.
The second sentence (By submitting, posting or displaying…) says that if you make the content publicly available this clause applies, but it doesn’t apply to private data.
And the sentences that most people quote in those stories (in the middle of that paragraph) only say Google can use the content for promotion (well duh, they want to show off what their services can do), and it says they can syndicate your content (use it on one of the many Google blogs to show off their service, for example).
And one last thing, that only affect content that you post through a Google service (in this case docs and spreadsheet). Content held elsewhere is still yours (a point that doesn’t seem to be getting through!)
So let’s recap, Google doesn’t own your content nor do they claim to in any way, shape, or form, Google can modify your content or whatever only for promotion purposes, and that the content affected by that paragraph has to be submitted through a Google app (in this case docs and spreadsheet). And, this clause only applies to publicly available content, not private stuff.
Evil? No. Business people? Yes.
Please subscribe, or else I will cry. Do you really want to make a programmer cry?
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