back to article Burned by Chrome - Fire put out

Update - Google amends Chrome EULA (Updated 4 Sep '08 0830 GMT) Google has amended section 11.1 of the Chrome EULA so that it now reads: 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. There are now no other sub-sections in section 11 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Santa
    Boffin

    Could be a boo-boo

    This has the look of being a boo-boo...

    I'd say it's a copy and paste job of the terms and conditions from an online service (hence "using this service" and they didn't proofread properly...

    So the T&C are in Beta too! ;-)

  2. Dr Who
    Linux

    Mushed be shum mishtake

    This must be a clause that slipped in from some other Google licence. The use of the word Service (which gmail for example is but which Chrome is not), suggests that someone has been over-enthusiatic with their cutting and pasting from another EULA.

    If the clause is intentionally there, then it still makes no sense, because as already mentioned Chrome is not a service. It's a piece of software.

    You should still worry about stuff you send via gmail or upload to Facebook, but I suspect that it will transpire that this clause is either a mistake, or it is unenforcable because it is meaningless.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do no evil?

    As more than one blogger has already pointed out today, it's "don't be evil". Apparently there's a subtle difference.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are you sure?

    "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."

    Are you sure and certain that these Additional Terms for Chrome don't cancel this "right"?

    If it doesn't, Chrome will be *illegal* to use in France which doesn't allow the assignation of copyright.

  5. Joe K
    Black Helicopters

    Nice

    Whats that, 24 hours?

    Quicker than i expected for it to crash and burn, and leave it to the lawyers to kill it stone dead too.

  6. Ian
    Coat

    not actually evil...

    but very very naughty! Ah well, at least that simplifies my decision on whether to use Chrome or not....

    NOT!

    mine's the coat with the half written novel in the pock....hang on, Google nicked it!!!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Strangely.....

    ...I seemed to know this was the case even before reading the article ;-)

    Haven trusted google for years, but their search engine is good! Only recently, on a Reg readers advice, have I started using scroogle. Cheers to that person!

  8. Pete Randall
    Stop

    How does it identify that content?

    How does Google work out just what that content is except where such things have been directly posted to Google owned machines? A cynic might suggest that Chrome keeps a record and reports it back to Google....

  9. Christoph
    Boffin

    Hardly news

    That one has happened a *lot*.

    What probably happens is:

    * They need (genuinely) a licence to use the information to make the system work. For instance a blog site has to have a licence to display what the users have typed into their blogs.

    * Someone gets their pet lawyers to draft the licence terms as widely as possible to make certain they are covered in every possible situation.

    * But nobody checks to see whether they have drafted it too widely, so it claims far too many rights, often to a ludicrous extent.

    * Although they boast of their experience in the business, none of them know that this has happened many times before with exactly the same problems and consequences.

    * They publish the licence terms and are genuinely surprised that there are screams of outrage.

    * They deny that there is any problem.

    * After making sure by their intransigence that it is a public relations disaster they eventually back down, as little as possible, and without ever acknowledging that they cocked up.

    And in this case they seem to have added:

    * They copy the standard licence terms to an application where those terms make even less sense than they did in the first place.

  10. John

    EULA copied from Google Docs?

    Sounds like they've copied the license text from another service where it might have been vaguely sensible. It doesn't make any sense at all in a browser. Shame - Chrome has some nice features and is certainly very fast, in the brief play I've had with it. The Google folks just need to sort their heads out.

  11. David Harper

    Chrome is already banned where I work

    Our sysadmins have already circulated an email this afternoon forbidding anyone from installing Google Chrome, citing clauses 11.1 and 11.4 of the EULA as the reason, and adding: "The issue of information rights and the protection of information is important and cannot be over-emphasised."

  12. David Webb
    Jobs Horns

    Service?

    I'm not sure a browser can be considered a "service", maybe it means Google services you access via Chrome?

  13. Liam

    not an issue...

    since on the 2 machines ive tried it on it manages to crash and burn before its done much. i just get a lovely dead tab icon.

    now, why the hell do i get this on 2 very different xp machines??? is the question!

  14. greg
    Thumb Down

    bullshit

    Well here's one IT admin who will be banning Chrome entirely from his network, and downplaying it over-zealously to anyone who dares mention it.

    Aside from that MASSIVE downside, it's not a bad browser.

  15. alex dekker

    "the Services"?

    What are "the Services" you speak of?

  16. Webster Phreaky
    Jobs Horns

    Once Again, TOO BIG For Their Britches, Google Boys ARE Emperors

    The Cosmological Constant of Large Lumps of Shit will coalesce in one place, the Frisco "Bay Area", where the over-bearing obnoxious arrogant jerks like those at Google and Apple, Intel, Adobe truly believe that you're rights are theirs to step all over .... and you pay them a premium while they're at it too.

    When will the masses of Kool Aid Drinkers just learn to say no to these a-holes?

  17. DiskJunky
    Black Helicopters

    hmmm

    why am I not surprised?

  18. JimHigson
    Paris Hilton

    GPL violation!!

    Doesn't this violate the GPL?

    I assume Google are creating Webkit derivatives under the GPL licence?

  19. Bruno Girin
    Thumb Down

    No chrome then

    I was going to install Chrome to see what all the fuss was about but I think I'll abstain now.

    If Google was expecting Chrome to challenge IE, that's not a very good start...

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No thanks

    I have a sneaking suspicion that this is more about giving google the right to modify data between you and webservers (ala sticking targeted adverts all over your viewed webpages, whether the owner of the website wants them or not) than it is about usage of published content, but even so -

    No thanks.

  21. Simon Hildreth

    Old news

    We all had a jolly good laugh about this in IRC yesterday... just get Chromium, hack in adblock + your favourite extensions and away you go.

  22. Alastair Dodd
    Alert

    Not clever Google

    Due to this and the carpetbombing vulnerability that it has it's been banned from our work network already - but anyway you shouldn't test beta software in a work environment really anyway

  23. Kev B

    Clause 11.2 is a 'Bad Un' as well

    11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services

    So they could then pass your "your content" onto other parties ? For example I upload an image to my blog page via chrome . Google can then take that image and pass it onto a third party ?

  24. Andrew
    Thumb Down

    Oh Joy

    Another piece of software stealing your rights away. Wait, isn't just using windows doing that anyway?

  25. Teoh Han Hui

    Services

    Could "Services" refer to the Google web apps instead of Chrome?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    storm in a teacup...

    This is taken straight from the license for google's other services, where it actually makes a bit more sense. It is a standard T&C for any web based forum/service where users upload content for public viewing. For example, sourceforge includes the exact same T&C. I expect that google's lazy lawyer folk couldn't be arsed to read/update their standard boilerplate.

    Clearly, google need to make it clear that it doesn't apply to private content uploaded/posted to 3rd parties using chrome.

  27. Kris
    Flame

    Getting sick of google

    I find myself distancing myself more and more from google. I just find they are too interested in too much information and its not so much that I don't trust them (why would i, they are basically just another faceless company) but I worry more about what would happen if the info changed hands, say under government pressure.

    Add that to this whole content thing and yeah, to much power/information at one spot. So yeah, Chrome will be given a miss.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    impressive

    the browser is cool, fast, nice. all the eula stuff will not stop people from using it, and the devs to start testing on it, and recomend it... it will be a very hard time for fx i think...

    btw a new icon is necessary here! you know, the bad, the good and the ugly... google guy!

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    FFS

    I'll need my extra-long barge pole for that browser then.

    Do no evil? You can f* right off Google.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    How will Google know?

    Unless this puppy is phoning home about everything you're doing.

    Alien because E.T. likes to phone home doesn't he

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Displaying ?

    "or displaying the content"

    So just viewing someone else's web page with Chrome means that you give these rights to Google? And warrant that have the right to do so. Which you don't. Therefore you are in breach of the license and so you have to stop using it. Bizarre.

  32. twelvebore
    Thumb Down

    Why...

    ...is this a surprise? Why do people think Google is spending time and money to build a web browser? Google search works fine in existing browsers. What possible use could a Googlebrowser be if this was only about peddling data they already have their hands on?

  33. Albert

    post or display

    So, if I display something in Chrome I am saying I own the right to it and I give Google the right to what every they wish with it.

    Does this mean if I browse the whole of Microsofts website I am giving it to Google.

    Do no evil - my arse

    Countdown to retraction....

  34. Mike

    All your stuff are belong to us

    Yeh, right.

  35. Dan
    Thumb Down

    Services as in gmail etc.

    Whilst it is deplorable to have such a clause in pretty much any kind of contract, I cannot help but think that they mean services such as google docs and gmail etc instead of everything done using chrome. I know that you have to be very specific when it comes to legal contracts and this is worded very poorly if I am correct, but this won't have been entirely on purpose for everything done using the browser..

  36. Baldychap

    errrrr...

    So...as webpages are 'displayed' though it's shiny new browser is google therefore saying it now owns the whole web??

    Nice try guys.

  37. The BigYin
    Flame

    I will not be touching chrome...

    ...until that clause is gone and it stops sending data back to mummy.

    Google is the new evil empire.

  38. moronatwork
    Dead Vulture

    Another reason not to use chrome

    about:plugins

    ActiveX Plug-in

    File name: activex-shim

    ActiveX Plug-in provides a shim to support ActiveX controls

  39. pctechxp

    that logo

    looks like HAL's eye (probably stating the bleedin' obvious)

    I wont be installing Chrome because I hate Google with a passion.

  40. Edward Barrow

    Lazy lawyering

    It's obviously a cut-and-paste job from another licence; it will be changed when someone with a commercial brain talks to the lawyer who did it.

  41. dervheid
    Flame

    They can shove their 'chrome'

    up the orifice that the sun shineth not.

    Chancing fucking bastards.

    Methinks they have gone TOO far this time.

    I WAS going to give this a try, but having read the EULA, they can get stuffed.

    Gits.

    Time to 'De-Google'.

  42. Craig
    Stop

    Para 11.2

    Surprised that para 11.2 isn't included in the article:

    "11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organisations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services."

    In short, they can take your data and pimp them to the highest bidder.

    Yay for Google's fair and liberal EULA...

  43. Paul
    Happy

    expect this to be fixed

    This clause is unlikely to survive a legal challenge - it's manifestly unreasonable.

    More to the point, this seems like a generic licence Google use for all their online services. The clause is unlikely to survive the first common sense review within the Googleplex, now that the problem has been pointed out.

    Where's the google-with-a-halo icon (or the one with horns)?

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Talk about shooting yourself in the foot...

    They manage to produce a really good browser that's just what's needed - and then reinforce all the worst fears about what their intentions are with this appalling copyright grab. It'll be banished from here forthwith, and not reinstalled until they get real. Thieving gits.

  45. Chris
    Thumb Down

    As I said earler...

    I don't like Google's 'fcuk you, we OWN you' attitude.

    This is unacceptable.

    And it's not going on any system I have anything to do with unless Google backs down and stops trying it on.

  46. steogede

    EULA

    It is a good thing somebody reads these things. I look forward to hearing Google's response.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Conceptual

    EULA realy sucks. Moreover, who would want a browser from a company that Simply Places Ads for Money. I see a risk in it...

  48. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Stop

    and I agree with the 'blogger above'

    100%

    What happens to those of us who have material on the net with a CC-BY-NC-SA license?

    Someone actually likes my work (well it could happen) and downloads it from *my* website using Google's *browser* making it effectively Google's property. That doesn't even begin to make sense.

    Is that the orgasmic cry of a thousand lawyers I hear?

  49. Richard

    Not only MS and Google

    Adobe tried this a while ago with some version of Photoshop, where they tried to do a rights grab uploaded to Adobe's online photogallery via this software. They got shot down in flames for it.

  50. Chris iverson
    Black Helicopters

    So they have right to my data

    But do I have a right to theirs. I didn't think so. Therefore Chrome has become a view only browser for me. And all my tasty copyright work goes up through firefox.

    Its the long one with the hat. They are watching you know

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.