Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Google Chrome Wants Your Content

I'm not one much for reading the EULA on the software I install since most of it will likely never affect me in any way... however someone pointed out to me a few passages from the EULA of Google's new web browser, Chrome:

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.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make
such Content available to other companies, organizations or
individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of
syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the
provision of those services.

17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and
may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may
be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services,
queries made through the Services or other information.

As for the last one, I've already heard plenty of complaints about Google potentially placing ads in your browser, and if they do, I'll immediately stop any use of it. However, the licensing bit sounds a bit dubious. Sure, they're "allowing" you to keep your copyright on any content you submit, but they're granting themselves a license to use that content. Now, I *imagine* that this license is there simply to cover their backs for stuff like Google Cache, translation services, previews on search results, etc... but what if Google is secretly more evil than we think and they have something bigger in store? I can't imagine they'd find this blog particularly useful in piling on more money for them, but if they've got the license for the content produced by millions of people, the potential for abuse is endless.

I'm generally unable to use Chrome for the time being since there's no Mac version, which I'm a bit upset about. However, at least it gives the browser time (before I get to use it) to be inspected by the masses and if anything fishy is going on, I'm fairly confident it will quickly be made public.

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