Google Drive--Even More Evil

Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
of information it can compile about you.

In it's latest bid to expand it's online evil empire, it has launched
Google Drive, an online data storage service to compete with Dropbox and
Microsoft's SkyDrive.

Just one hitch:
ANYTHING YOU SAVE TO GOOGLE'S CLOUD, GOOGLE CLAIMS *IT*OWNS*!!!

From Google Drive's terms of service (TOS):
"Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit
content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a
worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create
derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations
or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our
Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and
distribute such content...

"...This licence continues even if you stop using our Services..."

All your data are belong to US!

Google counters that the first sentence of its TOS states: "You retain
ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that
content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." Oh really?!?

What good is 'ownership' if you have given away all the rights?

More details here:

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-574...-files-on-goog
le-drive/>

Use ANY Google service at your peril.

You have been warned!

--
The problem with Crapitalism is there is an infinite supply
of vicious, greedy bastards demanding everything for themselves
and happy to let everyone else pay the price.

In article <fmoore->,
Fred Moore <> wrote:

> Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
> it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
> of information it can compile about you.

Jeezus, Fred, Jolly Roger is going to have to kill-file you now.
--

.... do not cover a warm kettle or your stock may sour. -- Julia Child

Since Apple dpesn't want to enable iCloud for Snow Leopard, if there are
other services which enable their remote storage for Snow Leopard, I
might go with them.

On 2012-04-25 17:44:56 +0000, JF Mezei said:

> Since Apple dpesn't want to enable iCloud for Snow Leopard, if there are
> other services which enable their remote storage for Snow Leopard, I
> might go with them.

Dropbox, Wuala, Box.net to start with.

And many apps, both desktop and iOS, are "aware" of these services and
either deal with them directly or are enable to use them through the
normal filesystem. (In particular, Dropbox just syncs from a folder in
your local filesystem, so you don't need any specific "cloud awareness"
on the part of applications on the desktop. Wuala *can* do that, or
can work purely cloud-like).

None of them, however, take care of syncing my iCal and AddressBook
information, which I'll really miss. I have one machine which cannot
go beyond Snow Leopard and I'm not planning on retiring it soon. I was
hoping for a long time that Apple would relent and enable some of the
iCloud syncing for SL (and there were screen shots a long time ago from
some dev build of SL which showed some iCloud stuff, but apparently
they decided never to release that stuff).

I'll miss the MobileMe galleries, too, but there are plenty of suitable
substitutes (including, again, Dropbox and Wuala, both of which enable
you to share photo galleries synced up to your local filesystem)

I'm a little skeptical of GDrive, and appreciate Fred sharing the
rather unpleasant terms of service.

With Wuala, not only do they make no claims on your data, but they
cannot even decrypt it.

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:44:56 -0400, JF Mezei wrote:

> Since Apple dpesn't want to enable iCloud for Snow Leopard, if there are
> other services which enable their remote storage for Snow Leopard, I
> might go with them.

Wuala have just announced that they've bumped their free storage to 5GB.

Allegedly to celebrate the third birthday of joining forces with Lacie.

Wuala does require Java though, so if you are avoiding that product for
whatever reason, Wuala isn't for you.

--
Paul Sture

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:18:13 -0400, Fred Moore wrote:

> Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
> it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
> of information it can compile about you.
>
> In it's latest bid to expand it's online evil empire, it has launched
> Google Drive, an online data storage service to compete with Dropbox and
> Microsoft's SkyDrive.
>
> Just one hitch:
> ANYTHING YOU SAVE TO GOOGLE'S CLOUD, GOOGLE CLAIMS *IT*OWNS*!!!
>
> From Google Drive's terms of service (TOS): "Your Content in our
> Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services,
> you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use,
> host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those
> resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make
> so that your content works better with our Services), communicate,
> publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such
> content...
>
> "...This licence continues even if you stop using our Services..."
>
> All your data are belong to US!
>
> Google counters that the first sentence of its TOS states: "You retain
> ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that
> content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." Oh really?!?
>
> What good is 'ownership' if you have given away all the rights?
>
> More details here:
>
> <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-574...your-files-on-
goog
> le-drive/>
>
> Use ANY Google service at your peril.
>
> You have been warned!

But are they any worse than the rest?

From Ars Technica:

<http://bit.ly/IevpHq>
----------------------
Google Drive files can end up in ads, even though you still own them

When Ars spoke to the Electronic Frontier Foundation about Google Drive's
terms of service, the EFF found little about them that was more
suspicious than in any other similar cloud service. But Rebecca Jeschke,
EFF's media relations director and digital rights analyst, paused over
one phrase: "The rights you grant in this license are for the limited
purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to
develop new ones." Promoting?
-----------------------

Also see that article's comments.

--
Paul Sture

In article <fmoore->,
Fred Moore <> wrote:

> Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
> it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
> of information it can compile about you.
>
> In it's latest bid to expand it's online evil empire, it has launched
> Google Drive, an online data storage service to compete with Dropbox and
> Microsoft's SkyDrive.
>

....

RULES FOR BETTER WRITING

26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place, and omit it when its not
needed.

In article
<lybanon->,
Matthew Lybanon <> wrote:

> In article <fmoore->,
> Fred Moore <> wrote:
>
> > Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
> > it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
> > of information it can compile about you.
> >
> > In it's latest bid to expand it's online evil empire, it has launched
> > Google Drive, an online data storage service to compete with Dropbox and
> > Microsoft's SkyDrive.
> >
>
> ...
>
> RULES FOR BETTER WRITING
>
> 26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place, and omit it when its not
> needed.

The passive voice should never be used.
--

.... do not cover a warm kettle or your stock may sour. -- Julia Child

On 2012-04-26 09:29:00 +0000, Paul Sture said:

> On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:18:13 -0400, Fred Moore wrote:
>> Google counters that the first sentence of its TOS states: "You retain
>> ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that
>> content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours." Oh really?!?
>>
>> What good is 'ownership' if you have given away all the rights?
>>
>> More details here:
>>
>> <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-574...your-files-on-
> goog
>> le-drive/>
>>
>
> But are they any worse than the rest?

Maybe.
>
> From Ars Technica:
>
> <http://bit.ly/IevpHq>
> ----------------------
> Google Drive files can end up in ads, even though you still own them

Note that that article discusses Dropbox, iCloud, Microsoft SkyDrive,
and Google Drive but does not address Wuala -- which, unlike the rest
of them, does not have the ability to access or read your files because
they don't have your encryption key. (Though all bets are probably off
for anything you put into Wuala into a "public" area, such as their
photo file sharing section).

All the rest retain a key to unencrypt your data for "your" (and their)
convenience - which has advantages - it can allow them to do things
like make it easier for third party apps to access/use your data, set
up a web page for you to be able to get at your data without a local
app, etc etc. But it also means that, for example, if they are told to
comply with law enforcement and turn your data over, they can turn it
over unencrypted. Wuala also has to turn over data to law enforcement
if asked - but since they don't have your keys, at most they can turn
over your encrypted files. And if they have a security breach (like
DropBox had a while back) nobody's going to get at your unencrypted
files.

At least that's all my understanding of it. I use both Dropbox and
Wuala -- for different things. Dropbox definitely has much less
obtrusive integration both into my filesystem and into all the apps,
especially iOS ones, which can work with it. But the personal content
either goes into Wuala or into encrypted files on Dropbox (ie.
1Password uses Dropbox, but the datafile it keeps up there is encrypted
by 1Password, not Dropbox).

In article
<lybanon->,
Matthew Lybanon <> wrote:

> In article <fmoore->,
> Fred Moore <> wrote:
>
> > Supposedly Google's corporate motto is 'Don't be evil'. As we all know
> > it violated that a very long time ago by stealing and selling every bit
> > of information it can compile about you.
> >
> > In it's latest bid to expand it's online evil empire, it has launched
> > Google Drive, an online data storage service to compete with Dropbox and
> > Microsoft's SkyDrive.
> >
>
> ...
>
> RULES FOR BETTER WRITING
>
> 26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place, and omit it when its not
> needed.

If, Matthew, you mean the two occurrences of 'it's' in the second quoted
paragraph, you are absolutely correct. Should have been 'its'. My bad.
Haste makes waste. Thanks for your substantive contribution to the
discussion.