Not even a day out of the starting block and Google has a few major headaches with its new Chrome browser. Chief among them is the wording of the EULA(1) .
The portion of the EULA in question is(2) -
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. 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. 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.
11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.
The entire EULA is at the link above, or in this footnote(3)(4)
Update - As of 090408, Google has amended the EULA for Chrome. Section 11 now reads -
11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
This is, understandably, causing tremors in the online world. Ars Technica is reporting that Google is going to change the EULA retroactively.
Google’s new web browser Chrome is fast, shiny, and requires users to sign their very lives over to Google before they can use it. Today’s Internet outrage du jour has been Chrome’s EULA, which appears to give Google a nonexclusive right to display and distribute every bit of content transmitted through the browser. Now, Google tells Ars that it’s a mistake, the EULA will be corrected, and the correction will be retroactive.
Further down the article Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome, Rebecca Ward is quoted as saying that Google reuses its EULA phrasing and that in this case -
“this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product” and says that Google is “working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.”
On a final note from the above Ars Technica article -
It’s worth noting that the EULA is largely unenforceable because the source code of Chrome is distributed under an open license. Users could simply download the source code, compile it themselves, and use it without having to agree to Google’s EULA. The terms of the BSD license under which the source code is distributed are highly permissive and impose virtually no conditions or requirements on end users.
As pointed out by Mike Cane -
Like most people, I didn’t read the EULA and saw this for the first time in the above post.
But I’m not going all apeshit. Neither should you.
Now that all of that nasty EULA has been taken care of, lets look at what ZDNet(( If you dont already subscribe to Tech Update, why not? )) and other are reporting about Chrome security -
From ZDNets Zero Day Blog -
Just hours after the release of Google Chrome, researcher Aviv Raff discovered that he could combine two vulnerabilities - a flaw in Apple Safari (WebKit) and a Java bug discussed at this year’s Black Hat conference - to trick users into launching executables direct from the new browser.
While used by Apple in its Safari browser, Apple’s WebKit is version 3.1.2 and that version has been patched.
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