Can I use a sensitive scientific microphone aimed at the front window of your house and record everything going on inside?

Not my fault you publicly broadcasted those sound waves.

At some point, there is an expectation of privacy. Wi-fi technology is confusing to people, and they don't understand how to protect them, which is unfortunate, but it's not an excuse for someone else to do whatever they want with their emails, passwords, and other private information. Honestly, if this was any other company, there would be more outrage in the comments.

It's an ethics issue.

I guess if you're okay with the idea of Google secretly gathering people's emails and passwords for three years "accidentally", then this article isn't going to do much to persuade you.

If this was Microsoft or Apple, nobody would be buying that explanation.

Even if you were right, Google isn't any less exempt from blame, because it would mean there is so little oversight over handling of user data that one engineer can put into place a program that indexes emails and passwords under everyone's nose for three years. If an individual had done this, authorities would have punished them.

I don't understand how you can claim that FCC report is being mischaracterized. It cites the original proposal written by the engineer, and it reveals that other engineers had knowledge of the project. One of the managers claimed he signed off on the design document without even reading it, which is scary on its own.

There was never any intent do use this data, it was merely one engineer's pipe dream to do so.

The program's proposal explicitly states that the intent was to collect payload data to "be analyzed offline for use in other initiatives." Then the program ran for three years. I think you should take your own advice and read the FCC report.

If the source film is at 48 fps, yet most theaters will be showing it at 24 fps, there's already going to be selective post-processing and motion blurring going on to make high-motion scenes look correct. Dynamic fps isn't that far off.

Facebook doesn't want Bing. They don't want people to search the web and click away from Facebook. They want to replace the web and keep people on Facebook. This is why Google views them as such a danger.

I would sell it just to never see that stupid logo. It drives me nuts how its stretched so that the horizontal lines are thinner than the vertical lines. Seriously, if you're trying to create a brand name, you would pick a better name and make a better logo that doesn't look like some high school kid's pirated Illustrator output.

What a fluff piece from the Verge. It doesn't compare the exact wording of the policies. Instead, it justifies Google's policy by saying abuse is "unlikely" (which isn't the point) and explains that rival services need certain delivery permissions to run the service, but it doesn't cite any examples from the policies of those rivals that are equivalent to the content license that Google Drive grants.

The article also claims that "public" refers to the user and their actions regarding their own data. But that is NOT what Google Drive's policy states--it explicitly states that the content is licensed to Google as well as anyone Google works with.

Google's motivation, in all that it does, is to index your data an sell you to advertisers. Advertisers are the customers, and you are the product. Android, Gmail, the search engine, Google Drive, Google+, and so on--they all exist solely to index people's data and serve them ads. 96% of Google's revenue comes from advertising. It is their core business.

In fact, that's not actually bad in and of itself, up to the point where it crosses into creepy territory, like in this case. Just by uploading your personal files, you are licensing them to Google to do whatever they want with them. And not just Google--note the parenthetical "(and those we work with)". So you don't even know who is going to be using your personal data. I mean, these policies actually give Google and other strangers the right to publicly display and distribute your files. One wonders if that absolves them from any consequences from security intrusions too, since a hacker getting hold of your files that would count as publicly distributing them, even if accidentally.

I've never bought into the image of benevolence Google always presents to the public, and that's cost me Slashdot karma over the years, but I don't care. It will be very interesting to see who defends this. It would be difficult not to see them as sellouts of themselves, all too happy to trash their own privacy rights, eager to please the advertising megacorp and defend them from attack. Wake up!