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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