Google Photos storage terms and conditions

Read them carefully before Clicking away your Copyrights

[Leosghost]

From The Register..

A clause in the Google Terms of Service notes that The Chocolate Factory reserves the rights to use anything you decided to toss into its servers for marketing and other stuff.
When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) 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. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

Google later told The Register

A Google spokesperson got in touch with us after publication to say: "Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user's explicit permission."

So..who decides what is "uploaded commercially"..and if photos of your family, or holidays , or friends etc are "not commercial"..do you want Google to have the automatic right to use them to market and publicise Google services ( existent or future )..do you want your family photos in image search ? or used to sell or promote Google products and services ?
[theregister.co.uk...]

[RedBar]

I'd never even heard about this service. What puzzles me is why people are so tight that they won't purchase a $40-50 portable hard drive and not have these possible problems?

[engine]

Redbar, many people find it easier to click on the little Google icon which invites your to store all your "stuff" for free, and many rarely read the terms. Additionally, the cloud-stored images are available wherever there's access to the Net.

If Google did use imagery, and users spotted it, that's when they'd start an uproar, as happened when Facebook started utilising imagery.

[not2easy]

So..who decides what is "uploaded commercially"..

That is what it appears to say at first glance. On a second look it seems like the meaning was that they will not use your uploaded photos and videos commercially. A clearer phrasing would help.

[Leosghost]

On a second look it seems like the meaning was that they will not use your uploaded photos and videos commercially.

That interpretation would mean at best that Google maybe won't sell or rent your images to a third party without asking you ( watch out for pre-ticked boxes when you upload..or alterations to T&Cs after you have uploaded ) ..but it doesn't stop them using your images themselves to promote Google's products..

When were Google in their statements and T&C's ever not vague and open to interpretation in their favour..

[tbear]

Kind of makes their statement, 'Google Photos gives your personal photos a comfy new home. ' just a little deceptive, I think.

[not2easy]

@Leosghost - I did not intend that to be an endorsement of the policies, simply tried to make sense of the statement ;) It was my first thought as well that they meant "commercially uploaded" which makes no sense for a free service.. The spokesperson's words never replace the written terms and the terms are not in agreement with the statement in any case. The vague and ambiguous statement is misleading while the Terms are much clearer:

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) 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.

_{Translation: "All your images are belong to us."}

[Leosghost]

@Leosghost - I did not intend that to be an endorsement of the policies, simply tried to make sense of the statement ;)

Didn't think you did :) ..I was typing ( as per usual ) whilst doing other things..

[RedBar]

many people find it easier to click on the little Google icon which invites your to store all your "stuff" for free,

Yep, I realise that however what are all these people doing with all these images and what do they intend to do with them in the future. Sure, one may have a phone with Net access however if there are tens of thousands of images stored there and not in organised albums etc, it's a nightmare, a mass of jumbled digital data.

I know how bad I used to be with real film emulsion and photos, heavens knows what I'd have if digital had been around in the 60s~90s, however will this probably be giving Google free access to billions of images to unused/dead/dormant accounts in a few years' time?

[tangor]

It no surprise that "G" appears in "gimme" as well as "google". :)

TANSTAAFL kiddies. Giving up your copyright for the free service is the price paid. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is (too good to be true).

[EditorialGuy]

I don't see anything about "clicking away your copyrights."

Granting a license and transferring copyright are two different things.

[RedBar]

But if there is only a user name and password and unused for several years who is going to supposedly know what belongs to who?

[tangor]

A lack of consideration for one party (the user) is quite evident this is unilateral on one side (provider). But as has been noted before, the only thing more common than hydrogen in the universe is human stupidity.

[MrSavage]

Isn't Google Image search non commercial? How else can they (and Bing) host everyones photos like they do? I hope this situation is clarified. If you have a Hawaii photo, heck, fair game for throwing into image search? Maybe not today, but tomorrow?