Dropbox has updated its Terms of Service yet again. The latest revision is much more clear about what rights Dropbox reserves with regards to stored content. This follows an uproar over a revision to its terms last week.
Earlier this week we compared Dropbox’s ToS with that of similar cloud storage services, but Dropbox now appears to be the clearest of them all.
Here’s the text of the new version of the ToS:
…By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.
We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services).
To be clear, aside from the rare exceptions we identify in our Privacy Policy, no matter how the Services change, we won’t share your content with others, including law enforcement, for any purpose unless you direct us to. How we collect and use your information generally is also explained in our Privacy Policy…
But ToS complaints aren’t Dropbox’s only worry. A recent security issue left Dropbox user accounts open regardless of what password was used to login, and one user has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company.
Are you happy with the new terms? Or are they too little too late?
