Why the Google Photos license agreement is keeping me out

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There’s a lot being made about yesterday’s Google Photos announcement.

Some of the brouhaha is centered on compression. If you want unlimited free storage, you have to accept a small amount of compression. Why would Google compress something even if your photos are under the 16 megapixel limit? One possible reason: To provide value, Google Photos needs to run your photos through their image analysis algorithms, producing a version of the image with (I’m guessing here) some sort of embedded tags so they don’t need to ever search those photos again and so those photos can easily be searched.

To me, the argument against using compression is weak. We accept our highly compressed music without (much) complaint. I’d bet that the vast majority of people couldn’t pick out a Google Photos compressed image from a non-compressed image.

Do you shoot in RAW mode? If so, then the free version of Google Photos is not for you. But if you don’t, if you shoot to capture a memory and not as an art form, compression is not the sticking point.

Instead, take a look at this chunk from the Google Photos license agreement:

Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.

If you are going to upload your photos or movies to Google Photo, read these words carefully. The way I read it (and I’m no lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt), at the very least, Google has the right to use your photos in its advertising.

There are darker interpretations, but I’ll leave that to the license agreement experts.

I really like the idea of Google Photos. I wish Google would come right out and say, we won’t ever use your photos for anything without your explicit permission. As is, this license agreement is keeping me out.



  • It’s a huge shame, really. The app works so well on iOS and I’ve even been weighing up whether to use Google Photos over Apple Photos, but stuff like this just makes me want to stay away, like you.

  • Colin Mattson

    I don’t begrudge Google those terms for most of their services—in most cases they’re perfectly reasonable, as most of Google’s repertoire is built around sharing.

    But to lazily reuse those same terms for Photos, which is intended to be largely private, is unconscionable. Even nixing “promoting” alone in the case of Photos would make the terms reasonable.

  • DougFisher

    Is that to say that Google could use a photo a friend shot of me in an ad if said friend uses the Google Photos app? Even though I don’t use any Google products myself?

    • Dave Mark

      Yes. That is my take.

      • DougFisher

        That can’t be right, I wouldn’t have signed any sort of release form. And in that case who gets sued, the friend or Google?

        • marcintosh

          That’s my thought. They could use your photo of a tree, but not a photo of you, without expressed permission.

          • websnap

            That’s not necessarily true – if google did not take the photo, only appropriated the fair use rights to it played out in these term agreements – they are under no obligation to confirm expressed permission was given. That would fall back to the shooter. Depending where all this takes place of course.

          • marcintosh

            What you’re saying makes sense, but I thought they’d gotten releases for people used in some of their commercials. I wonder how this would be affected if you put a copyright watermark on your images? If someone were to make a camera app to do that, for example.

          • websnap

            Yes, I wouldn’t launch a huge campaign with other people’s photos (especially since the pint of the campaign was the highlighting of people’s digital lives on google) however that this wording does absolve them if they get in any hot water for usage of images in other ads or ads for third party partners. They have put in place a safety net – whether they intend to use it or not – they can. That should be an issue.

        • Eugene Kim

          “Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.”

        • font9a

          I believe google would win. They have deeper pockets than you or me.

        • freediverx

          They’d have the photographer’s permission but not the subject’s. However, their terms seem to state that the photographer must obtain permission from their subject prior to submitting the photo to Google.

          In summary, though, more of the same from Google… a complete disregard for the privacy of its users.

          • Moeskido

            And Google’s server farms are all over the globe, so I’d guess they can potentially claim jurisdiction by a nation that allows them free reign and does not extradite.

    • owmyheadhurts

      Unless there is a way to prevent the uploading of select images, that would be a yes.

  • laserlord

    Not enough praise has been given to Flickr, which already does everything Google Photos does and more. Yahoo deserves a ton of credit for their effort they have recently put into that service. It also doesn’t have that ‘creepy’ Google factor.

    • kgelner

      I have and use and really like Flickr, but I don’t think it does everything Google Photos does – not the cool movie summaries, or the summary pictures from a trip all put together in one animation. It’s not they couldn’t (Flickr has long has that “interesting” algorithm at work behind the scenes). It’s just that they don’t.

    • David Metcalfe

      You clearly have not read up on what Google Photos actually does if you sincerely believe Flickr compares at the feature level.

  • David Kolb

    Meh. The derivative works bit is actually you giving them permission to “Auto Awesome” your photos. They find photos taken rapidly and animate them together into a GIF (and keep the previous versions) and auto balance your photos. These are considered, legally, derivative works.

  • GFYantiapplezealots

    Just tried this out and it doesn’t even compare to Apple photos! First, the ‘free’ storage is only if you upload a ‘recompressed’ image by Google, NOT your original image like Apple.

    Another thing I don’t like is there’s no map view. You can see the location of an individual photo, but not all of your photos on a map. Lame.

  • Jonas Ensby

    From Apples iCloud terms:

    However, by submitting or posting such Content on areas of the Service that are accessible by the public or other users with whom you consent to share such Content, you grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you.

    Just saying. I’m pretty sure all EULAs and Terms claim the right to your first born somewhere in there.

    • The difference here is that Apple says the publishing is being done “solely for the purpose for which” your photos were submitted: to be viewed on iCloud. (They are covering themselves in case someone in Timbuktu views your picture.) Google’s terms indicate they may use your photos to promote their services. That’s an entirely different thing.

      I don’t see Apple’s stance on using content after you’ve removed it or quit the services. Google says they can continue to use your content even if you remove it or leave, which again indicates they could be using that content in promotional materials that are already out there or about to be out there.

    • kenmcall

      There’s a good rundown of the various Terms of Service posted by Apple, Flickr, Amazon, etc. here:

      http://petapixel.com/2015/05/22/a-look-at-what-top-cloud-storage-services-say-about-your-photo-rights/

      According to the article, “Apple’s only rights to use the content are in conjunction with the cloud service…Apple does not have permission to use your photographs for usage outside their cloud service.”

      The line from Google’s TOS that got my attention is the following:

      “.When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works…” etc.

      The key line is “and those we work with”. It sounds very much like Google has opened the door for organizations besides Google to use your photos under the same TOS that Google has for itself. Perhaps someone of a better legal mind than myself can clarify that, but it certainly looks to me like that’s what they are saying.

    • kgelner

      Read the Google TOS and that carefully again. The Google TOS is saying anything you upload they can use for anything. Apple is saying they can do the same only for content that is PUBLIC. Which none of your photo library is by default.

  • GLX

    Flickr (Yahoo) and others do the same… https://policies.yahoo.com/ie/en/yahoo/terms/utos/index.htm

    • Colin Mattson

      No, they don’t. Compare the terms carefully: Nowhere does Yahoo say that they will keep your photos forever or grant themselves a license to everything you upload for their own advertising purposes.

      Yahoo explicitly goes out of its way NOT to do that. Google’s attempt to have a one-size-fits-all TOS is inappropriate here.

  • Not a chance. And I’m not talking about my photos at work. Much of the language is to protect them from frivolous lawsuits, and is understandable. But it’s too broad and allows them to do too much.

    Nobody can use my photos for anything without my permission. Period.

  • RudyGr

    Just remember, there’s no free lunch with anything Google. They’re not in the business of being a charity.

  • Stefano

    The difference between your compressed music and your compressed photos is that you can always purchase or download a high fidelity or uncompressed version of the song – nothing is lost. Once your photo is compressed, however, that’s it – there’s no safety net unless you’ve backed it up first (which most people are likely not doing).

  • Well, if you prefer, you can always install the OneDrive drive app (it works the REAL definition of Cross-Platform on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and others), and it gives you lots of free space… and unlimited if you want to also gain even more value with Office 365 or Bing Rewards.

    And heck, now that Amazon and Google are doing unlimited photo storage, don’t be surprised if OneDrive expands to unlimited by the end of July.

  • kgelner

    Thanks for finding that. I tried to look for this info during the keynote, the the website was not really up yet. That’s exactly what I feared, you don’t have to be a lawyer to read that as they WILL use any content they find photogenic for any purpose they please, including ads or demos… I can see why someone might not care, as you get a lot of cool stuff in return but it’s too much given away for me to take part.

    What I’d like to see is how close Photos could be brought to do what Google Photos gives you, perhaps with some added third party support…

  • David Metcalfe

    I don’t see a problem with these terms unless one reads them through the lens that the article does. Facebook already tried using peoples’ photos in their billboard ads and backpedalled big time years ago. Google isn’t that stupid. They get advertising better than anyone. If you consider the feature set of Google Photos, and what the service was doing prior to the revamp when part of Google+, not much has changed. Back then, it was taking your photos, applying Google’s image recognition capabilities to the images and videos in order to index, translate, and post-process them in a variety of ways. Auto Awesome would create panoramas, gifs, mix together a new image from a series of group photos so that everyone was smiling in the final, would generate stories of trips from your photos, and simply make new photos with different effects. If Google was given no rights in the terms, they couldn’t access and modify your content to create all these things. The above is basically all creating derivative works. How else can they share your content via the links they generate unless you allow them the rights to do so? They’re a business that is covering their asses to simply provide the features offered in Google Photos. This goes back to the TOS and Privacy Policy consolidation they did back in around 2012. You couldn’t have Google Now providing things like flight information unless their services could access your flight itinerary in Gmail (which before that, they couldn’t). You couldn’t search and locate documents in Google Drive from Gmail unless the terms again allowed for this. You couldn’t view your Google Drive images in Google Photos unless the terms allowed for this. The list goes on, but I’d suggest others be more reflective on the terms and what Google’s integration across services really requires in terms of legalities than simply maligning their intentions.

  • Google likes to think it does. Maybe. But the relative lack of consideration in exchange for those rights is likely to be as much of a nuisance to them, at some point, if they ever actually do use your photos for commercial purposes. As you say, a lawsuit waiting to happen. Unfortunately, in cases like this, it would have to be class action – they simply have deeper pockets than most of us can afford to reach into. The more big corporations insist on our sharing our content – with them, for free and with unlimited “rights” – the less sharing is likely to happen. That may not be in anyone’s best interests. I already hate the fact that Google is uploading photo and document attachments to Docs and Photos when I send/receive GMail…

  • roboticengi

    What a big pile of BS…..Take off the apple glasses for 2 secs and read this: In short, what belongs to you stays yours. How can it be more clear…….God sometimes I really do understand why apple can get those sales numbers with zombies like this…..

    • Guy

      Yep it stays yours…and Google’s…AND anyone they decide to partner with. Maybe YOU should read it more carefully

  • In response to a similar article on The Register (http://m.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/29/google_photos_terms_of_service/?mt=1433104420439): “A Google spokesperson got in touch with us after publication to say: ‘Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user’s explicit permission.'”

    • Mike

      Then they should state that in the ToS!!

  • Bruno

    Google uses servers all around the world, so it needs to mode your files around between those servers both as a way to reduce latency and also to have backups.

    Google Photos also has some (although very limited) photo editing features, meaning that the file they host might get modified. Even though you (the user) is the one requesting that change, it is being made on the file they have. With them.

    To be able to edit and move your files around, Google needs your permission to “use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works”. To be able to show you the files wherever you are, it needs your permission to “communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content”.

    These types of permissions are common with file hosting services.

  • I suspect all that fancy wording in the license agreement was composed by a bevy of lawyers for a single purpose: protecting Google. I don’t earn my living with photography, but I’ve captured a few lucky shots, and I don’t want ANYONE using them without my permission, especially not for financial gain (as in advertising).

  • Mr. Axehandle

    Please stop the paranoid rumor-spreading and/or trolling. Nowhere do these terms state that Google is licensing your photos for use in advertisements. It is quite clear that this is not the case, and to state otherwise is ignorant and deceitful. Moreover, the ToS clearly state that “what belongs to you stays yours”, and “[t]he rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.” That’s it. And herein, “promoting” is not the same as commercial advertising, and refers to using your images and data for display to you and friends to entice you to use the system.

    Perhaps most importantly, if you’re still worried, nobody actually cares about owning or using your photographs, which are a minuscule drop in a massive ocean of digital media.

  • Andrew Robulack

    What’s the URL for the page you accessed this excerpt?

  • Evan Edwards

    You are not a lawyer. Or a data admin. They need to have authorization to copy and modify your files to back them up, spread them across servers for your use, and otherwise provide the service that they do. This is akin to Dropbox’s license… and any other private data store. Including ones that handle medical data and legal records (having worked with both, I have seen the exact same clause). In essence, it’s “you’re giving us the rights to take care of your data as you are asking us to.”

    And they also tell users: “Google Photos will not use images or videos uploaded onto Google Photos commercially for any promotional purposes, unless we ask for the user’s explicit permission. The photos you upload to Google Photos are private, unless you choose to share them.”

    • Kristian Septimius Krogh

      Hi people – this issue is as far as I see it – NOT about Google using a nice picture for their direct advertising – no this whole thing is about YOU. You are the value here, and with all the millions of other people, that use Google Photo App, it becomes a billion dollar value. WHY, you might ask? Well because by letting Google into your photo collection, you let them into your life – your interests, your hobbies, your favorite clothes, shops, meals, foods, travel destinations etc etc – and THAT represents big value for Google, when they sell adds, that later gets placed on your tablet, computer or smartphone. And remember all the photo data that can be extracted from your pictures, can be cross referenced with all the other data, that we so willingly let Google, FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram and others look into, when we use the services. Give it a test – take some pictures of a specific pair of boots in a shop, a certain motorbike in a shopwindow or a piece of jewelry at a high end jewelry shop.. And then watch when an add for the same thing or similar, suddenly shows up on your screen, when you Google something, or when you are on YouTube.. Just try it. It works like a dream with FaceBook.. They are watching your every move –