Dropbox Updates Terms of Service, includes the “we read your documents” clause.

Dropbox has been busy informing their users regarding the updated Terms of Service. The Terms of Service also includes the “we read your documents” clause.

  • Permissions. We care about having Terms of Service that are readable, give the right amount of context, and avoid unnecessary legalese, so we’ve updated our language to better match the permissions you give us with the features you use. For example, to provide you with document previews, our automated systems need permission to access and scan your stuff for those previews — so we explain this in the new Terms.

Users would love the document previews feature at the cost of allowing Dropbox system automatically scan and read the documents to generate the said previews. Similar to the way Google read your emails to serve “contextual” ads. In my experience, in-Gmail ads never caught my interests.

Dropbox Blog 20140220

Changes to Google Privacy Policy

Google will be taking its new Terms of Service into effect on November 11, 2013.

We are updating the Google Terms of Service. The new Terms will go live on November 11, 2013 and you can read them here.

Because many of you are allergic to legalese, here’s a plain English summary for your convenience.

We’ve made three changes:

  • First, clarifying how your Profile name and photo might appear in Google products (including in reviews, advertising and other commercial contexts).
  • Second, a reminder to use your mobile devices safely.
  • Third, details on the importance of keeping your password confidential.

To opt-out of the “Shared Endorsement“, Google+ users need to lbe logged in and uncheck the box for “Based upon my activity, Google may show my name and profile photo in shared endorsements that appear in ads.”

Google-Privacy-Opt-out-20131011