the egg is now in a nest made of shitty swords and soft puppet ass

Full disclosure: I don’t use Chrome. I don’t want Chrome. I could not possibly care less about Chrome. So I am not saying what I’m about to say because I WUB CHROME, I’m saying it because people are tripping balls about it and need to be educated.

So. Chrome’s been out what, a day? Two days? And already people are flipping their shit, all OMG GOOGLE WILL STEAL EVERYTHING YOU LOOK AT IN CHROME, because of this clause in the EULA:

By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

Now. People who have been on Teh Intarwebs for a while might think that bit looks kind of familiar. Doesn’t it look a lot like that bit in DeviantArt’s TOS that people were flipping their shit about back in the day? Or CafePress? Or Geocities? Remember all those shitstorms? You would think by now that people understand exactly what that bit means and why it is necessary.

In fact, Google even TELLS YOU IN THE SENTENCES PRECEDING AND FOLLOWING THAT BIT that this does not mean they will steal all your shit:

You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. [that bit previously quoted] This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

People? Google HAS to include something like this in its EULA, for the same reason DA, CafePress, Geocities, and everyone else who’s had an Internet shitstorm about such a clause in its TOS/EULA has to include it.

All it does is give Google permission to display your shit in the damn browser, and if necessary, possibly not display it in the exact way you coded it to display if it will cause problems in the browser.

“BUT BUT BUT,” people are already saying, “THAT GUY, THAT GUY YOU LINKED TO, HE IS A LAWYER AND HE SAYS GOOGLE WILL DO WHATEVER THEY WANT WITH ALL YOUR SHIT, IT ARE FACT, HE KNOWS CAUSE OF HIS LEARNINGS.”

Yeah, well… I’m pretty sure lawyers have to go to school for a while, so I’m kind of inclined to take anything said by a “lawyer” who can’t tell the difference between “its” and “it’s” and doesn’t seem to understand how public domain works with a few 50-pound sacks of salt.  (hint: “blog post” does not necessarily equal “public domain”)

Settle down and stop spreading FUD, people.

Originally published at Fire of Unknown Origin. You can comment here or there.