Comments on: Who Owns Your Online Documents?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:12:27 +0000

If Google or any other service provider goes bankrupt or has an act God, of course you lose your documents. The lesson here is tried and true: back up, back up, back up.

By: Ajay Pathak

Ajay Pathak — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:22:20 +0000

i think Microsoft’s new SAS concept will defiantly affect Google and other online office suites programs.
and here the creator owns the complete rights over the documents

By: eDeskOnline

eDeskOnline — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:06:12 +0000

As said online office applications are proving more productive and also reliable at any time, with sites like eDeskOnline you can access them on any internet enabled computer or on your GPRS activated cellphone that makes life more simpler.

By: rick

rick — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:43:10 +0000

Marcin,

Depending on your sharing preferences you MAY need to publicly share a document… for example with partners etc.

The solely to provide you with service part limits the rights that they assert earlier.

By: Zoli Erdos

Zoli Erdos — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:18:32 +0000

Although the TOS suggests the same wrapped in somewhat legal terms, Zoho’s Privacy Policy is worth looking at, for a simple, plain English declaration:

We assure you that the contents of your Account will not be disclosed to anyone and will not be accessible to employees of AdventNet. Neither do we process the contents of your Account for serving targeted advertisements.

http://www.zoho.com/privacy.html

By: ed

ed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:08:39 +0000

Thanks for that! I left a comment wondering about this very thing only a short time ago.

By: Marcin Grodzicki

Marcin Grodzicki — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:34:46 +0000

I don’t understand this ‘solely to privide you this service’ part – I don’t need my documents translated or publicly displayed in order to use the service. In that case can google put my private documents on the (public) web at any time or not?

By: Lasse Rintakumpu

Lasse Rintakumpu — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:15:44 +0000

The Terms of Services may seem (unreasonably?) harsh for a layman, but they probably exist to protect the companies from predatory lawsuits.

So I wouldn’t be too worried (but I would make regular backups of my cloud-hosted documents).

And to be fair, you should compare these service terms with, let’s say, Microsoft Office’s EULA. I don’t even want to know what that document says.

By: Collin

Collin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:43:52 +0000

Zoho – I’ve been using their services since…well, since they pretty much started. I get immediate answers to questions and have never had an issue. I looked at their license early and google’s as well…have to say it’s a BIG factor for me.

Go with Zoho – a better service by far!

By: Todd Andrews

Todd Andrews — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:10:57 +0000

Definitely an important question to ask and understand. Hopefully you can proceed with your online business without ever needing to deal with these legal issues.