September 22, 2007 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – Despite Google’s attempts to standardize its Google Apps as the online system of choice for businesses and organizations around the globe, a website blog has revealed the terms and conditions for Google Apps usage might make the option decidedly uninviting.
ZD Net’s Joshua Greenbaum blog (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Greenbaum/) has revealed that, according to the terms and conditions of usage, the content hosted on Google Apps belongs to Google. Greenbaum quotes a reader who had spotted the terms and conditions posted on the Google Docs and Spreadsheets site. The blog quotes them as follows:
“… you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services…”
Although the blog suggests there may be potential for legal interpretation that might give Google what it calls, “wiggle room’, if, as the terms and conditions suggest, Google does own the content it hosts, this could have very serious implications. Obviously, it would be detrimental for businesses around the world having their facts and figures revealed without authorization, but there is further opportunity for damage.
Google offers a free service to educational institutions that have been utilized by universities including Northwestern University, Arizona State University, Boles University, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson University, University of Texas San Antonio, and Kennesaw State University and Arkansas. There is clear potential for universities hosting their academic findings and research results on Google Apps to have them prematurely revealed.
