Much of the anxiety SEOs had over using Google drive due to some legalese in the TOS have been brushed away, but not to the satisfaction of everyone. Google Drive is an online content storage service for personal documents, other content and photos. This all centered around the following specific passage in the Google Drive TOS which stated:
“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 concern over this was that anything that was stored on Google Drive would in effect be the property of Google. For instance, if a copywriter stored all of their articles, either completed or in progress, on Google Drive, the concern was that Google could take possession of them. That is not the case however. Google issued a statement which explained each point in plain English so that it is easily understood that they need these standard permissions in order to allow for language translations, sharing, etc..
That went a long way to clearing up the confusion that many SEOs and content creators had. In fact, the Google Drive TOS, in this regard, is really no different than would be found on any similar service. The panic arose mainly because it was Google, SEOs had been down this road with them in the past and the “do no evil” days of Google seem long gone.
Tags: copyright, google drive, privacy, seo news
