Story: Microsoft attacks Google Apps

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There are MANY terms and conditions you picked the wrong set!@

Yes, I am sure

Your IP Rights have been licensed to syndicate!
Read the rights you have assigned away from the Google Apsp Tersm and Conditions link at http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/terms.html

When you assign away your rights, you have done just that, you might own the content but so does someone else, that's what assignment means!

Syndication of "your content" is also a possibility when you read the fine print.

Your Rights (from Google Ts and Cs)

"Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services.

You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate.

By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.

Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any service offered by Google.

Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion.

You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the rights granted herein to any Content submitted."

Breaking this statement up into its constituent parts presents some new governance challenges for organizations who want to contain and protect their intellectual property.

Read again the paragraph that states "..................you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. "

I am sure that most organizational IP counsel will not have read the content of that paragraph through to its conclusion and even though the "purpose" is stated, this may not be in the best interests of your organization for a number of reasons outlined in a whitepaper where we raised this issue almost 6months ago in April 2007.

It also presents serious "governance" challenges about who in the organization has delegated authority to license and sign over content such as is indicated by Google above in the last paragraph.

Organizations need to be very careful about what they want to be listed using Google Apps as it is clear that what is being displayed is being made available “to members of the public” through web search engines as recently evidenced by the issue of Google Calendar meetings and passcodes being displayed about meetings for organizations such as McKinsey etc.

In our view the use of Google Apps needs careful consideration by senior management of all the issues before they jump into these free tools as there are some procedural in-house issues that need to be addressed as well as the issue of Intellectual Property Management that need to be addressed.

The above Ts and Cs clearly states Google have now been granted a license to share in your IP!

Is that what you intended to happen to your correspondence with customers/suppliers, internal documents, product drafts, financial results, budgets and forecasts, new product designs etc etc etc by "....submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public,........"?

We understand a Google "Powerpoint lookalike" is soon to be released and this will also present some serious IP challenges and Commercial-IN-Confidence issues for C level execs with the content us

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