Remember this terms of service paragraph?
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.
That’s the same TOS material that caused so much discussion about the search engine service Lijit in these pages a while back. See comments in A Report from BlogHer08 and Lijit.
But the paragraph quoted above came from Google’s TOS for the new browser beta Google Chrome. All it took for Google to listen and change the TOS was an article in slashdot. Almost overnight, Google changed its TOS and posted an explanation on the Google blog: Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome.
As for Lijit, we heard from them during the discussion here about their TOS, but if that has changed since then, we haven’t heard about it.
Yes, Lijit has been completely mum on several fronts critical to Blog Publishers rights and ownership: Revenue, use of data, and ownership.
P.U.B. is working hard on cracking Lijit’s wall of silence, but we could not do it without the hard work of individual Publishers like you. You can count on P.U.B. to stick to the Lijit issue until it’s solved for Publishers,
Barney Moran,
Founder, P.U.B.
Virginia, thanks for keeping us on our toes. We’ve had our lawyers look at our TOS and are in the process of rewriting things. The updated version should be available on our website in a few days, but I can share the first sentence with you…
“We do not claim ownership in any Content that you post, make available, or allow Lijit to index (collectively, “post”) on the Lijit Services, but to be able to legally provide and promote the Lijit Services, we have to have certain rights to use such Content in connection with the Lijit Services, as set forth below.”
When the rest of the terms are posted, I’ll be sure to let you know.
We appreciate you taking such an interest in our TOS. Perhaps once you’ve read our revisions, you’ll consider reinstalling Lijit on your blog?
Tara Andersons last blog post.. RMBB 5000…A Party for all Political Viewpoints
I do intend to reinstall when that happens. Thanks for the update.
We have updated some of the legal jargon on our site and your thoughts on the following would be much appreciated…
Reader TOU http://www.lijit.com/reader_tou
Publisher Agreement
http://www.lijit.com/publisher_agreement
We’re looking forward to hearing what you think!
Tara Andersons last blog post.. RMBB 5000…A Party for all Political Viewpoints
If this is a stupid question, I apologize, but would a site like this with a Lijit search form be considered a Reader or a Publisher in terms of which TOS would apply?
Virginia, sorry about my delayed response. If you are a blog publisher using Lijit, then the Publisher Agreement applies to you.
In that Publisher Agreement, we explicitly state that we don’t claim ownership of any of your content. However, in order to return search results, we have to be able to use your content. It’s just that simple.