this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Citation needed?
Google explicitly stated the exact opposite of what you've said here: Google Drive Terms of Service
Best call out in history lol
That talks about ownership, not access. So they won't claim they wrote the short story you uploaded. But take a look at this, "We may review content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our Program Policies, and we may remove or refuse to display content that we reasonably believe violates our policies or the law. But that does not necessarily mean that we review content, so please don’t assume that we do."
Are you good with Google literally telling you that they look at your content, but "please, don't assume that they do?" If you feel they have your privacy and best interests in mind with a statement like this and they aren't algorithmically sniffing every thing you upload, I have some extended warranty coverage I would like to sell you.
I know for a fact that Google scans everything, including zip files, and WILL delete things they deem a problem.
I tried to store my own, paid for, copies of software, like office. Google deleted it. OK, I'll zip and password protect. Nope, scanned, deleted. Never bothered trying to encrypt first, just moved on from Google.
Now with tools like Resilio, Syncthing, and Tailscale, cloud holds little value other than backup.
I really like Resilio a lot, after lots of issues with other sync software, it's made for an excellent personal cloud.
I like Resilio, especially the selective sync feature. Unfortunately because it keeps the file index in ram, it kills my phone with my media share. It also uses a lot of resources on my Windows machine.
Syncthing doesn't have this performance hit, but... It doesn't have selective sync.
Sigh.
So I use both for different purposes, with Resilio not running by default.
Yes, it talks about ownership, because the original poster talked about ownership.
Google hosts files, and thus needs to have some semblance of control over what actually is hosted on it, or they become liable for the same content.
Pirated material? Child pornography? etc. It all needs to be scanned and determined if it violates rights/laws and be dealt with.
Google has always done this automatically, because the sheer scale of content they host is overwhelming.
I totally understand the 'own everything' mentality that some hold. That's fair -- then host it yourself, encrypt it, and you can hold the key to your little kingdom. For most people, that isn't a factor.
To get back to the original claim -- they don't claim rights over what you post. It is yours. You just can't host other people's stuff. The definition of that is incredibly broad and largely commercial. 99% of people will never, ever run into the issue. 99% of the remaining 1% will discover it innocently (such as another poster trying to back up office). The remaining will already be versed enough to encrypt their data locally before uploading.