You have to hand it to Google - even when they do something useful and helpful, they manage to create something of a firestorm which is completely unnecessary. The latest mess is Google Drive which is their attempt to get you to store all of your documents with them, so that you can share them anywhere, on any device. It's rather like DropBox or Microsoft SkyDrive or Apple's iCloud. It's basically a cloud storage service that will provide users with 5GB of free storage space, or more at monthly fees of up to $50 for 1TB. The current hysteria relates to the ownership of your material when it goes into their drive system. According to some reports it's a 'toxic brew' while another report says that it's no worse than any of the rivals.
Google starts by saying "Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours."However, they then go on to say:
"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content."
This sounds like they're going to be displaying your material with the Sound of Music running in the background or something, but that's not actually what they do mean. In order for you to use your stuff on multiple devices they need to fiddle around with it. Derivative works mean versions of your original stuff which is created as a result of user requests such as translations.
However, the real problem is two fold, and doesn't really relate at all to the idea that Google is going to run off with your material. Firstly, the legal contract that you enter into with Google is vague - much vaguer than some of the competition that's out there. This is because of their unified policy and one size fits all requirements for you to use all of their services such as search, gmail, YouTube and so on. As a result, it's unlikely that your company or your organisation is going to be keen on you storing confidential material in Google's system - don't even bother to try. Google will of course take care of your material - and I suspect take more care with it than your company does, since one disaster will cause ructions all over, but you'll still have lost some control over your material.
The second issue, which is going to be giving your IT people a problem is file structure. Now, if you upload say a Word document into the Google Drive you can open it and amend it IF you're doing so from your own version on your own local Google Drive and NOT the cloud version. Now, if you are using a different computer for example and you want to edit the file, you have to do so on the Cloud version, and that means that Google is going to modify it in order for you to work on. This will then get synched back to your own copy on your own machine. With me so far? If you're offline, that can't happen. Your current version is on their system, and you can't get it. You can set your system up to work offline, which is great, but you still may not have access to the most recent update. Allied to this is another problem - Google Docs is pretty basic. If all you want to do is scribble some notes, or maybe do a few bullet points, that's not going to be an issue. However, if your file is full of footers, headers, contents lists and so on, there's a real danger that Google is going to mangle the whole thing for you. So, if you're a 'power user' of Microsoft products, or indeed Apple versions you're probably not going to find that Google is that much help in this instance.
I rather think that these two points are the ones that may make you think twice about using the service - not the overhyped legalise problem. Of course, your milage may vary, and I should also point out that I'm not a lawyer, so if you're in any sort of doubt, talk to someone who is.
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Not only all that, but Google Drive is a copy of Sky Drive. Its so much of a copy that they give you the same storage free: 5 gb. I got so mad I even made a post in my blog developersthoughts.tk. Google docs is not advanced, but its easy and smooth, more than anyone can say for SkyDrive. I agree with most of the stuff you say.
Not only all that, but Google Drive is a copy of Sky Drive. Its so much of a copy that they give you the same storage free: 5 gb. I got so mad I even made a post in my blog developersthoughts.tk. Google docs is not advanced, but its easy and smooth, more than anyone can say for SkyDrive. I agree with most of the stuff you say.
Posted by: Seth Sevenyoln | May 17, 2012 at 09:38 PM