Have you actually READ the Gmail EULA?

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Have you actually READ the Gmail EULA?

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I’m so surprised at the number of people flocking to Google for their cloud based email services. Has anyone actually READ the Google/Gmail license agreement? I’ll bet not. If they had then they would be concerned about a few sections. Now – I’m no lawyer or legal person, but these sections scare me enough to NOT use Gmail for anything business related at all. You can get the Gmail Terms of Service here http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en

What do you think of the following

Section 4.3 – They can basically stop service permanently or temporarily without warning or notice. Great – it’s free but hey why do I care… it’s not like I’d bet my business on it would I ???

Section 5.2 – You are agreeing that nothing you do with their services will violate US laws or export restrictions. Do you even know what those are ?

Section 8.1 – Google can filter or modify or remove any content from the service if they decide to. They can filter or remove sexually explicit content too – that might not be a problem unless you are in the medical profession where sexually explicit content is part of the job.

Section 11.1 – now this is the big one. Here you are allowing Google free use of anything you give them. They can sell it, distribute it, reproduce it, modify it, publish it… basically anything they want to do, they can… because you’ve just agreed to it.

So I ask you… are you seriously going to use Google for your business email requirements now?

Tags: Business Focus, Gmail, Google

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Have you actually READ the Gmail EULA?”

Tweets that mention http://www.sbsfaq.com/?p=1975%3Futm_source%3Dpingback -- Topsy.com Says:
June 15th, 2010 at 11:25 pm

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by . said: [...]
Tecno-panzanate di un spacciatore di tecnologia Microsoft | sandeisacher Says:
June 16th, 2010 at 1:00 am

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bruceb consulting – news » GMAIL LICENSE AGREEMENT Says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 2:21 am

[...] Small, an Australian SBS consultant, took a look at Google’s license agreement recently and wrote up a nice reminder that big companies do not make any pretense of playing nicely [...]
Patrick Steil (ChurchBuzz) Says:
May 20th, 2011 at 5:54 am

Yes, but if you look at this page:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/legal_notices.html

They say:

Google does not claim any ownership in any of the content, including any text, data, information, images, photographs, music, sound, video, or other material, that you upload, transmit or store in your Gmail account. We will not use any of your content for any purpose except to provide you with the Service.

This seems to more explicitly state that they are not going to do anything with your email other than provide email services to you…
Luis Gomez Says:
November 21st, 2012 at 1:21 am

Google changed the “Legal notices” page to this:

“Gmail Legal Notices

Your Intellectual Property Rights

The provision of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync functionality to you does not grant, and you do not receive, any rights under any Microsoft intellectual property with respect to any device or software that you use to access such Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync functionality.”

So they *can* legally have a perpetual license on user’s content.
Luis Gomez Says:
December 19th, 2012 at 8:39 pm

Google reverted the Legal notices to the previous version:

” Your Intellectual Property Rights

Google does not claim any ownership in any of the content, including any text, data, information, images, photographs, music, sound, video, or other material, that you upload, transmit or store in your Gmail account. We will not use any of your content for any purpose except to provide you with the Service.

The provision of the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync functionality to you does not grant, and you do not receive, any rights under any Microsoft intellectual property with respect to any device or software that you use to access such Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync functionality. ”

I’m just puzzled from all these changes…

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