Google has finally launched its cloud storage service, Google Drive. It gives users 5 GB of free online storage space and allows users to access their files from anywhere, including mobile devices. However, Google Drive's terms of service is causing some concern. Meanwhile, Microsoft arms Facebook, the FBI hands computer users a deadline, and Oracle and Google point fingers.
A lingering cloud of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) vaporware finally condensed recently into an actual product. Google Drive has been a subject of speculation for years, but now thecompany's own cloud storage service is here for real.
Google Drive lets anyone store a few gigabytes worth of data on Google's servers. The data can be anything you want -- photos, music, videos, word documents, secret dossiers, encrypted transmissions, whatever. You can upload it to Google's system for safe keeping, then use a name and password to access it later from your computer or just about any other computer. Google's also made a Drive app for Android, and an iOS version is in the works.
Online storage is a crowded market, and the amount of free space a provider offers each user is a major element of competition. For Google Drive, that's 5 GB -- less than what you get with Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Skydrive, which was recently updated, but more than what Dropbox gives you. Of course you can always buy more, and with Google Drive, that means paying anywhere from $2.50 per month for 25 GB to $50 per month for a terabyte-sized storage locker.
But almost as soon as Google Drive landed, it started getting the side-eye from those concerned about the protection and privacy of their data. Google has a lousy track record with privacy advocates who are concerned about how far a reach the company has into the private information of its users -- their email, their search history, their address books, map searches and more. Now Google's offering to hang onto users' actual files -- and probably their most valuable files, since one of the main benefits of using online storage is to keep the good stuff safe in case your computer's stolen or destroyed.
The fine print in Google's user agreement seemed to confirm their worst suspicions: It could be easily interpreted to mean that anything someone uploads to Google Drive automatically becomes the intellectual property of the company. How would you like to owe royalties to Google if you happen to save your mega-hit series of young-adult novels on its cloud? Or see those private photos you took in Hawaii last year become the inspiration for a Google Doodle?
Google responded by ensuring users it's not a plot to trick the world into owning all creative media. It won't use your personal photos or other data in ads, so long as you don't make it public. The rights it reserves to do things like "reproduce," "modify," "publicly perform," "publicly display" and "distribute" are all for the sake of doing what Google Drive is designed to do -- store your data and give it back to you wherever you happen to be.
In fact, this part of Google Drive's terms of service is just like the ToS that applies to all sorts of other Google properties, like Gmail. Technically it sounds like a charter for a massive IP con job, but in reality it would be suicide for Google to try to claim actual ownership over a user's data. Maybe the company could have provided a little straight talk alongside the legalese, though.
But aside from that, your data isn't completely safe from prying eyes on a service like Google Drive. For example, if law enforcement wants to see someone's stored data, Google is in the habit of obeying search warrants and court orders. That might seem obvious, but some online storage companies' ToS statements give the impression that they'd actually refuse to fork it over. And others automatically encrypt all the data they store before it even reaches their servers, so if the police or anyone else takes that data without the user's consent, it's just one big plate of scrambled eggs.
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