spudtater | Google Chrome: Worrying (Reply)

Edit: the post under the cut was accurate when posted, but Google have since stated that it was all a big mistake and have swiftly changed their EULA. See:

Google on Chrome EULA controversy: our bad, we'll change it, Ars Technica — N. Anderson, 03 Sep 2008
Google Updating Chrome EULA to Be Less Creepy, Gizmodo — M. Buchanan, 03 Sep 2008
Current Chrome EULA, with section 11 all but removed

If you were considering downloading Google Chrome, here's one big reason you might want to reconsider:

Google Chrome, like most software these days, is subject to an End User License Agreement, a legal document outlining the rights that the user and the provider each enjoy. You have to agree to this when you install the software on your computer.

The Google Chrome EULA is a long and complex document, and hidden almost bang in the middle is a very troubling paragraph indeed:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that 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 licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence 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. (Emphasis mine.)

The 'Services' referred to are earlier defined as "Google’s products, software, services and websites". Therefore, astonishingly, we are forced to conclude that the EULA gives them permanent rights to any content you upload with their browser, including any posts you make to social networking sites, comments you leave via web forms, photos you upload via a browser, etc.

More succinctly: if you use their browser, Google owns your ass.

(And not just Google, either — the very next clause gives them the right to grant usage rights to any other site which they have an agreement with).

Now, just because the license gives Google all rights to anything you post, doesn't mean that they'll actually make use of those rights... does it? After all, we trust Google... don't we?
I'm not so sure. Google has always had a lax attitude to privacy, and it has always gotten away with it, not because it makes any great secret of what it is doing, but because people just don't seem to care enough. Google logs all details of any search you make, permanently. It keeps permanent records of any email that has ever been sent from or to a Gmail account. We understand this, and use it anyway, because what have we got to hide? We are, after all, not forced to use Google products. But perhaps, with this, we should start to care.

I for one will not be downloading Google Chrome until Section 11 is gone from the EULA. I advise you do likewise.

(Thanks to Charlie for bringing this to my attention, and to The Register for the original article.)