[Updated] Google Wants To Own Your Content ... Doesn't It?

By Mike Riversdale /
[Updated after re-reading my colleague's version - it's the latest]

A colleague of mine, after reading this from of the Google Service Agreement he had to agree to ...
Your Rights

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.

...  made the following comment:
but holy crap.. they can't be serious with that??? (I am sure the NZ Privacy commisioner will have a heart attack if he/she started using this service and Google decided it was time to say it out loud and proud what he was transmitting electronically?)

And I would agree, it seems shocking. In effect, we can use your content for anything.
But was that what Google intended? Having read the fall-out from the Chrome "auto-suggest" issue of the browser "phoning home" Google I think it means:
  1. You own your content
  2. If you use any Google Service to publish it to the world we will publish it
  3. All public content may end up in an advert, brochure or anything else Google want
  4. We can remove content
I have no issues with any of that.
But what about non-public content? Does this line cover that:
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.

Hmmm ...

For a list of licences/rights you are agreeing to when using Google Apps check out:

For more reading and commentary read:

Related to "content control" is the set of privacy policies:
For more generic Google Privacy check out their:

Comments

  1. Unknown15 September 2008 at 10:16

    good post. I watch this space with baited breath, as i think it is Key to acceptance by some enterprises.

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  2. Anonymous17 September 2008 at 09:26

    I am waiting for a New Zealand Google representative to come out and state the facts.. hmm where are these googlebots?

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  3. Mike Riversdale17 September 2008 at 15:21

    Matt Cutts (the above post links to http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-license-agreement/) is a Google employee: http://www.mattcutts.com

    But more? Check out the official Google blog by Mike Yang - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-to-google-chromes-terms-of.html

    Nothing for Google Apps specifically

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