Google Drive Terms vs. Dropbox Terms
I finally did it.
I looked through Google's Terms of Use and Privacy Practices, and kind of compared it to Dropbox to see which platform cares a little bit more about your privacy and the information that you store on those platforms.
TLDR: Let's just say not going to be using Google Drive for much going forward.
So the question that I'm asking here is not so much is your information stored on Google Drive or Dropbox private from other people so much as it is private from those organizations, those platforms? Because yeah, files usually are private until you share them with someone via email or via link.
Google’s Terms of Use & Privacy
So here is what Google's policy say.
'“They may review content in your Google Drive, Google Docs, etc, to determine whether it's illegal or whether it violates their program policies.”
I like the last sentence on this.
"But that does not necessarily mean that we review content. So please don't assume that we do."
We may. But that doesn't mean that we do.
So let's look at the program policies. Here are all of the different program policies that Google has, and it's a lot, but the ones I'm looking at are Misleading Content and Personal and Confidential Information.
Misleading Content
My problem with that is that it's kind of a matter of opinion. If you want to get all political about it, what might have been misleading four or five years ago, is not the same as what might be misleading now, or next year. I'm not going to go through it all with you, you can go and look at it yourself but the thing is this: if Google can look through your drive, and your documents for misleading content, then they can look through it. You wouldn't know misleading content is there unless you're combing and looking for it. It just kind of gives me an icky feeling because that doesn't necessarily mean that we will, but we can language. And the fact that misleading is kind of again, a matter of opinion.
Personal and Confidential Information
That's not a matter of opinion. And the terms specifically say this do not store or distribute other people's personal or confidential information without authorization that includes social security numbers, signatures or images of signatures, and things like that. Again, confidential information, that might be a trade secret, and I don't want to get too much into the weeds about trade secrets, but an idea that you have that you are not sharing that you are keeping secret is not really secret, if they can, or they might or they could peruse what's on Google Drive to see if it's a violation of their terms. Also images of signatures. Well, if you're collecting signatures on a contract, that's an image of a signature.
So yeah, Google, I don't really love these terms.
Dropbox Terms of Use & Privacy
Dropbox has an Acceptable Use Policy. This reads much better. It gives me a little more comfort, not just as an attorney, but as a user of cloud software. But it's things are a little bit more comfortable. You can't do any of these kinds of things with Dropbox, violate the law in any way. Okay, that's crystal clear, violate the law is much more clear. Violate the privacy or infringe rights of others. Again, clear. Advocate bigotry or hatred.
These are much clearer words to me than what's in Google's gobbledygook. And it doesn't say anything about reviewing content that's in there. It says that Dropbox can take appropriate action if they learn that that kind of content is in there. But there's not that kind of we are watching you and we have the right to look through your files the same way that Google does.
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