Hi, First let me say that everyone on the App Engine team takes data privacy very seriously, and point you to Section 6 and 8 of the App Engine terms of service (http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html) that deal explicitly with the issue of data ownership and copyright.
Also, it is important to note that the only Google employees who have the ability to access data pertaining to any App Engine app are certain members of the App Engine engineering team, and the access is limited to that which is necessary to perform their job role. The _only_ circumstances under which a member of the App Engine team would access your application code and/or data is: - With the developer's permission, in order to troubleshoot a specific issue - If your application is causing system wide instability Any modification to your app through the Admin Console (by any person) is logged in the Admin Logs, that can be access at: http://appengine.google.com/adminlogs?&app_id=YOURAPPID Access logs are maintained by Google as well. -Marzia On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:06 PM, hawkett <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > > Just wanted to query the privacy policy, especially as it relates > to code. Would I be right in thinking that the only thing stopping > google stealing an app. or an idea for an app, or an algorithm or data > structure or whatever, is that you are such good guys? > > This is the privacy policy I am reading - > http://code.google.com/appengine/privacy.html > > I read the privacy policy to pretty much say you can do what you > want with the code? i.e. 'We use this information internally to > deliver the best possible service to you...' - you could interpret > that to mean pretty much anything, including ripping off an idea and > serving it back to us - (yeah, I know you are good guys). > > A second question would be Google's policy for employees or > contractors etc. looking at the code of app engine apps? Are there > any internal controls? Do you maintain access logs? What are your > criteria? > > An obvious situation would be a google employee reading a group > post, and saying 'Hey that's an interesting point, I wonder what app > they are building... let me just go in and look at their code... wow > that's cool... <days pass>... hey boss I have an idea for my 20% spare > time, how about we do this <subtle variation on app they looked at > recently>' - can you confirm that this does or does not happen? > > It doesn't even need to be conscious - knowledge is knowledge, and > you can't 'unsee' something. I challenge anyone to see something done > in a better way, and then continue to do it in an inferior way, > because they are a 'good guy'. > > It might just be a good idea to you, but it is IP and business > value that you shouldn't have access to. It is a significant barrier > to GAE adoption for many organisations. It is completely different > situation on a platform like Amazon (because I can protect my content > myself, among other things), and GAE requires a different policy than > 'to provide a quality service'. > > I realise this is covered by > http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=501, > which is an absolutely crucial issue that, naturally, has no input > from google apart from acknowledgement. I'm not writing this post to > register my support of that issue, I've already done that. I'm > writing it to try and get some sort of meaningful response form > Google. > > Would someone at Google please be able to elaborate? When do you > access our code? Thanks. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
