Google Drive

[Chris]

Another new service from the omnipotent Google that offers up to 16Tb of cloud storage...

Anybody signed up?

[Chippy]

Yes. I was already using my google docs space to store files, so this is just an upgrade really with extra tools and space. Seems nice enough, but I'll start using it in earnest over the next week.

[JohnS]

Won't let me sign up yet - am only allowed to register my interest.

[meic]

Just as an aside, anyone with an existing Microsoft Live skydrive account needs to opt-in to a free 'upgrade' to prevent their 25Gb storage allocation shrinking to 7Gb (doesn't apply to new accounts, which get the 7Gb).

[Fresno Bob]

I'm sticking with Dropbox. Got 100gb on there.

I'll gladly jump ship for something free though

[steverobertsbbc]

I wouldn't touch Drive with a bargepole.

Dropbox and Microsoft Skydrive policy: You own everything in your folder, we have no rights in it.

Google Drive policy: We can exploit anything you put in your folder in any way we wish and by signing up to use the service you signify your agreement to this.

[Chris]

That sounds well stinky.

[Stephen Wood]

All three of them say something like "we don't own your content" and all three of them say something like "we can do with your content as we see fit in order to provide the service" - that could mean anything.

[greencat]

In practice, I doubt they likely to be interested in the average forumite's collection of Katy Manning pron. But, they'd rollover in a minute, if the US Govt. wanted a peek at it. Encrypt anything you don't want them seeing.

[nebiroth]

I'm with Steve - I find it hard to believe that Google won;t attach the same conditions to stuff on Drive that they do to everything else.

In fact, personally speaking, I wouldn't touch any of this "Cloud" bollocks with a bargepole either. (I like the way "the Cloud" is made out to be something exciting and new. We used to call them mainframes! The concept is the same - you sit with a display (OK, at the moment, it has some processing power and storage of it's own, but even that is changing, with apps dumping the work onto remote servers and displaying the results) whilst a fat box somewhere does all the work and holds the data.

It's not hard to see why - the mainframe as a model is very hard to beat, the main reason places went over to PC's and networks was the desire to run everything graphically and graphics terminals were hideously expensive and place inordinate demands on central processing.

[nebiroth]

In practice, I doubt they likely to be interested in the average forumite's collection of Katy Manning pron. But, they'd rollover in a minute, if the US Govt. wanted a peek at it. Encrypt anything you don't want them seeing.

They don;t have to be "interested" - they just trawl everything as a matter of course, all automated naturally. No matter what you store it;s always of interest to someone, if nothing else it helps to build up that "intimate knowledge" of you as a target for advertising. True, it;s unlikely that someone is salaciously viewing your files; but an advertising agency might well be scanning their way through trying to build a picture of your interests, likes and dislikes.

It;s like saying Tesco aren't "interested" in what you buy in their stores. On a personal level they aren't; on a corporate level, they are. If they weren't, Clubcards wouldn't exist.

And, as you identify, if it;s US based it falls under the Patriot Act. The safeguards for US citizens are likely flimsy enough, for second-class foreigners they will be non-existant.

[Rik Byatt]

To be honest, reading this they are all nearly as bad as each other:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/25/29...dropbox-icloud