Businesses. Intellectual Property Holders Wary of Google Drive
With the ever increasing use of cloud technology for business, educational and personal needs, numerous consumers have been searching for a free, intuitive cloud service. Google has built a reputation on finding elegant solutions to technological needs; however, a suspiciously worded clause in their new privacy agreement unveiled March 1st suggests that anyone from a businessman storing his client’s financial records on his work phone to a student storing his thesis while attending an online MBA program, could soon find their hard work is now the intellectual property of Google, a move that has lead numerous analysts to suspect that Google may have lost sight of their motto: “Don’t be evil.”
At first glance, Google Drive appears to be the answer to many users’ prayers for a fully integrated, easily accessible and free cloud system. Google really has a genius business plan - offer to be the end all be all of Internet technology, and no one will think twice that you could have anything but their best interest in mind.
Offering an impressive 5 gigabytes of online storage, Drive creates an automatically syncing folder in your directory, allowing for instantaneous sharing and collaboration with documents that can be accessed via your Google account from any computer or smartphone. For small companies or startups dependent on contractors, this is a breath of fresh air in the fight to coordinate all of their efforts. Using Google’s business plan, it stands to reason you could run your own start up solely using their products and nothing else.
The point of concern comes in the form of this clause, which states that any use of Google Drive allows Google "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."
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