Cloud storage is hyped up now; every giant has its own cloud storage — Baidu, Tencent, 360, Kingsoft Kuaipan, 115, etc. But is what we store on them really only seen by ourselves? There was an article analyzing the privacy terms of Google Drive, Dropbox, and SkyDrive. Of course, Google’s controversial privacy terms have been widely discussed; see these three articles: “Google Drive: Your Data Is My Data” (http://www.guokr.com/article/165424/), “The Evil Google Drive Owns All Rights to Your Uploaded Files? No, You Probably Misunderstood” (http://www.guao.hk/posts/no-google-does-not-own-everything-that-you-upload-to-drive.html), “Is Google Drive worse for privacy than iCloud, Skydrive, and Dropbox?” (http://www.guao.hk/posts/no-google-does-not-own-everything-that-you-upload-to-drive.html). Let’s look at their privacy terms, first Baidu’s:
- In the following (including but not limited to) situations, Baidu has the right to use users’ personal information:
- During promotions or lotteries, Baidu Cloud may share users’ personal information with sponsors; in these cases Baidu Cloud will prompt before sending user information, and users can terminate the transmission process by not participating;
- Baidu Cloud may cooperate with third parties to provide related network services to users; in this case, if the third party agrees to bear the same responsibility as Baidu Cloud for protecting user privacy, Baidu Cloud has the right to provide the user’s data information to the third party;
- Without disclosing individual users’ private data, Baidu has the right to analyze the entire user database and commercially utilize the user database as a whole.
And Kingsoft Kuaipan’s privacy terms:
- Kingsoft may cooperate with third parties to provide you with related network services; in this case, if the third party agrees to bear the same responsibility as Kingsoft for protecting user privacy, Kingsoft may provide your personal information, etc., to the third party.
- Without disclosing your private data, Kingsoft has the right to analyze the entire user database and commercially utilize the user database (including but not limited to publishing, analyzing, or otherwise using user data such as visit volume, visit time periods, user preferences).
And the older 115 network disk:
- Without disclosing individual users’ private data, 115 company has the right to technically analyze the entire user database and commercially utilize the analyzed and organized user database. Although 115 has made great efforts to protect users’ privacy, it still cannot guarantee that existing security technologies will prevent your technical information from being lost in any form.
Just from these three you can see something — domestic companies cannot refuse reviews by relevant government departments, so don’t upload anything about your privacy or involving confidentiality; maybe you say you can delete it, but… Regarding whether files in your cloud storage can really be deleted: for massive-file storage technology, basically the file systems are one-way systems that can only add, not delete. Because any actual delete operation would hugely impact the entire file system’s hash structure, cache, queue, and various aspects, especially under distributed computing. And so-called deleting a file only means the corresponding system separates your file’s marker from the actual existing part in the file system. You no longer have management rights over the file you chose to delete. The version control/delete/permanent-delete/recovery we commonly see in network disks is actually just operating on different file markers. Whether foreign or domestic products, the vast majority do this. Even Dropbox and Gmail. All data exists permanently and, theoretically, can be fully re-read. In other words, your delete command only marks the file; the file isn’t really deleted — that’s why some netizens test: upload a file, delete it, upload again, and it uploads instantly (seconds). Because the file wasn’t deleted, it’s still on the server; uploading again triggers the instant-upload feature, directly re-associating this former file with you. Conclusion: Files containing personal privacy, involving confidentiality, or unsuitable for public release — please don’t upload them to any cloud, otherwise it’s equivalent to fully exposing the files to the relevant companies and government. But to mention, foreign companies may refuse reviews by the Chinese government, like Google leaving China, but they’ll still be subject to review by local governments.