Google Chrome Owns Your Thoughts
Google is getting into the browser wars with their new Chrome product.
As Futurelawyer points out, who needs a new browser (besides anybody who still uses IE)? But Chrome is made by Google and Google knows what they are doing so we assume the product will sell.
Take a closer look at the boilerplate Terms of Service Agreement, before you download the browser. We're not sure if Google's lawyers were trying to make hours or just drunk, but if they had their way, Chrome would own everything, everywhere, forever. From Valleywag:
[A]ny "content" you "submit, post or display" using the service -- whether you own its copyright or not -- gives Google a "perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute" it?
Valleywag goes on to list a bunch of other ridiculous rules that you "agree" to when you click "yes" on the internet.
I love it when clients go out of their way to create jobs for IP litigators. It's a faltering economy and everybody should be doing their part.
Update: Google has revised the ToS for Chrome. See here (via a commenter).
The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net [Valleywag]
Google Chrome - Do We Really Need A New Browser? [Futurelawyer]
(36) Comments
It was the best of times, it was the FIRST of times.
First to upload 8x10 headshots to Facebook !
Nonstory:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-to-google-chromes-terms-of.html
Anyone know who was Google's outside counsel for this?
GULC's new browser is called RUSTTY. 33.3x slower than Chrome.
... brought to you by the industry that gave us the shrinkwrap license!
"By the time you begin to read this, you will have already agreed to the terms stated below."
Old news. They just modified Chrome's TOS and took this part out. I don't like the browser anyways.
8:27 - 8:07 already noted that (and there is also an update in the post).
EIGHTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ah shit.
-9
Licensing terms for software and computer-related services are written this way just to see if people are paying attention.
"Google knows what they are doing so we assume the product will sell."
Sell?
That HLS JD is looking cheaper by the day, Elie.
Ever hear of a loss leader? Ever hear of ways of making money that don't involve widgets flying off shelves? Or Google's market cap ?
8:43 - I don't think he literally means "sell." He is just saying that the product will be popular.
whoa, an after-hours post.
an after-hours post about a piece of software that's been available for 3 days? what?
A pseudo-relevant post from the newly minted EIC? SHOCKING.
Way to become editor of a blog: spend $150k on a Harvard law education. Way to go there.
I'm all for after-hours posts, but this isn't up to your usual writing quality. It sounds more like rambling on at happy hour (run-on sentences, missing commas) and less like your sharp writing this afternoon,.
CHeck out this parody:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/google_chrome_comic_funnies/
Halverson's Mud Hole now open for business in Georgetown.
Google can chrome deez nuts.
wow, ATL has the power to bring Google to it's knees (err, mousepads)!
Google is evil.
Your searches are recorded, linked to your IP. Your activities on Google, YouTube, Gmail, are tracked. Each Google Ads click enriches a billion dollar machine whose ultimate goal is to catalog all knowledge and information - personal or public.
Suck it, Google.
/Posted in Chrome.
I like to mark up shrink wrap licenses and send them back to the company they came from, clean and redlined.
Ought to bill them too.
you forgot my favorite term:
"terms and conditions subject to change without notice"
Very similar to FB's and YouTube's Terms of Service. It's a standard disclaimer, but really won't carry much weight in litigation.
Who cares?
they already changed the language in the terms of service...the language cited in this post has been changed: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html
9.4 Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Google, you agree that you are responsible for protecting and enforcing those rights and that Google has no obligation to do so on your behalf.
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
What a worthless post! Do you not do independent research?
Yeah, that is some crazy TOU. Sort of like the one for ATL:
1.4 Grant of License to Submissions. By posting Submissions to the Website, you automatically grant, and represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Operator, a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), assignable, fully paid, royalty free, worldwide license to use, copy, modify, adapt, publish, make, sell, create derivative works of or incorporate into other works such Submissions, derive revenue or other remuneration from, communicate to the public, distribute (through multiple tiers), perform or display such Submissions (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate such Submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing through multiple tiers of sublicensees, including the right to exercise the copyright, publicity, and any other rights over any of the materials contained in such Submissions for any purpose, including for purposes of advertising and publicity on the Website and elsewhere. No Submissions shall impose any obligation on Operator, whether of attribution or otherwise, and Operator shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any such Submissions.
Fact is, the Google Chrome TOU IP provisions are pretty standard. Check pretty much any website that allows user submissions and you will see something similar. This is a non-story.
All that kind of provision does is allow Google (or whatever the entity in question is) to display, etc., the content. Before being changed, Google's TOU had a sentence that said "This license is limited to the rights that we need operate the browser..." or something like that.
I can accept that the media can't understand how license grants work and isn't experienced at reading and interpreting contract language, but I expect better from a legal blog.
This is pretty crappy fact-checking, Kash. The license was changed long before you posted.
How about a further update: ATL has a TOU with pretty much the same exact IP terms as the Google ones you are criticizing.
I know you are trying but unique language like that used by Google's drunk lawyers is not boilerplate. Boilerplate is standardized text. You used the term wrong and therefore you are dumb.
Unless the language is fairly standard. In that case, it isn't newsworthy and you are still dumb.
~12:19