A mysterious message is locking Google Docs users out of their files

A mysterious message is locking Google Docs users out of their files

By Brian Fung October 31 at 12:06 PM

Imagine you're working on a Google Doc when, seemingly out of nowhere, your ability to edit the online file gets revoked. What you see instead is an error message indicating that you've violated Google's terms of service.

For anyone who stores work in the cloud, suddenly being unable to access your data — especially due to a terms of service violation — may sound scary. And it's really happening to some people, according to reports on Twitter. Rachael Bale, a wildlife crime reporter for National Geographic, said Tuesday that a draft of her story was "frozen" by Google.

 Rachael Bale @Rachael_Bale
Has anyone had @googledocs lock you out of a doc before? My draft of a story about wildlife crime was just frozen for violating their TOS.
6:23 AM - Oct 31, 2017
 92 92 Replies   331 331 Retweets   315 315 likes
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Others have reported similar errors.

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 Bhaskar Sunkara @sunraysunray
Tfw your finalizing a piece on E. Europe post-socialist parties in Google Drive and Google removes it because it's in violation of its ToS??
6:24 AM - Oct 31, 2017
 17 17 Replies   116 116 Retweets   258 258 likes
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In response to some of these reports, a Google employee has tweeted that the team handling Google Docs is looking into the matter. In a statement, Google said it was investigating. "We will provide more information when appropriate," the company said.

Even if the error turns out to be a technical glitch, the fact that Google is capable of identifying "bad" Google Docs at all is a reminder: Much of what you upload, receive or type to Google is monitored. While many people may be aware that Gmail scans your emails — for instance, so that its smart-reply feature can figure out what responses to suggest — this policy extends to other Google products, too.

"Our automated systems analyze your content to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, and spam and malware detection," reads the terms of service for Google Drive, the suite of productivity tools of which Google Docs is a part. "Google’s Privacy Policy explains how we treat your personal data and protect your privacy when you use Google Drive."

If you visit Google's privacy policy, you'll find that Google is up front there, too, about the data it collects.

"We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you watch a video on YouTube, visit a website that uses our advertising services, or view and interact with our ads and content," it says.

What does it mean when Google says "collect information"? This page says more:

"This includes information like your usage data and preferences, Gmail messages, G+ profile, photos, videos, browsing history, map searches, docs, or other Google-hosted content. Our automated systems analyze this information as it is sent and received and when it is stored."

Google explicitly refers to docs — albeit in a lower-case fashion — as an example of the type of content from which Google extracts information. I've asked Google for clarification on whether they actually read the contents of a person's Google Docs and will update if I get a response. (Update: Google responded with a statement, which I've included above, but declined to answer questions about whether Google reads your Google Docs.)

"This kind of monitoring is creepy," Bale tweeted.


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