Google Drive

If you use Google Docs, you may have heard of the new Google product called Google Drive. It accesses your Google Docs and allows you to put all of your Google Docs files and any other files you decide to drop in there. It is a server system that puts a folder on your desktop and syncs regularly with the server. You can put this folder on any computer you want and drop files to the server from any computer. There are also apps for smartphones that allow users to drop files from their phones. From there, you can open the folder and drag your files on to any other computer. It's like a giant USB drive with no extra hardware. Sounds all fine and dandy, right?

Wrong. Google may have done this product in. The terms of use that nobody tends to read includes one statement that may turn off any observant user:

"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.

The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps)."

So. Google has rights to every bit of data (pun intended) you put in the Drive. Even if you stop using Drive, they still have rights to all those files. So the moral to this story? You won't hear me saying this often, but I would suggest turning away from Drive if you have information that you really don't want anyone else to read. I would suggest something more like Dropbox or Microsoft's SkyDrive, both of which claim no rights to your data.