August 10, 2011

Writers: Beware of Google Docs!

I found this in the terms of service for a Google account:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.


I tweeted about this and @pearannnoyed pointed me toward the revised version of this:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, share, upload, post or display on or through, the Service. By submitting, sharing, uploading, posting or displaying the Content you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, share, upload, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with the Google Docs Privacy Policy.





It sounds a lot better, but I'm wary. It's subject to interpretation, so I'm still going to hesitate before backing up my WIP on Google.

What do you think?

2 comments:

Brittany said...

Yikes. I hadn't heard of this. The revised edition does sound better, but I'm not sure.

I use Google Docs to back up stuff but now I have a portable hard drive, so I think I might take my docs off of it now.

Unknown said...

It could be nothing, but I'm a worrier and overly-cautious. Not using Google for backups is going to make things a little more difficult, but fortunately text documents don't take up a lot of space!

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