Google Photos: The price of free?

The Google Photos app allows you to save unlimited high-quality photos and even for free. Many people still say nothing in the world is free. So what is the price of this 'free'?

What is Google Photos?

Google Photos is a photo-saving application originating from the Google+ platform recently revealed by the giant in the recent Google I / O event. This service allows you to automatically upload all photos, videos to the cloud for free and unlimited storage, except for the two requirements.

- Photos must not exceed 16 MP ( if larger, the capacity will be reduced )
- Video has a resolution of no more than 1080p

If you download photos with original size and quality, or download 4K videos, you'll have to pay an additional $ 2 per month for every 100GB and $ 10 / month for 1TB.

This application is available on both iOS and Android with a lot of interesting features such as creating animations, collages, stories, movies, sharing photos quickly . and especially the ability to identify faces, classify Smart photos in multiple items.

You are the product

We often hear the sentence: ' If you don't have to pay, you are the product, not the customer .' Google earns money thanks to advertising. It collects and analyzes those data in a variety of ways with the main goal being to help make object-oriented ads more accurate.

Tim Cook also expressed his skepticism about this new service and said: ' We believe that customers need to have control over their information. You may like something called free service, but we don't think you deserve to exploit data such as email, search history and even family photos for sale for advertising purposes. And we believe that customers will one day realize the purpose of these things . '

Hypocrite?

A product like Google Photos is also part of Google's Terms of Service. This means that when you upload photos, you have given the giant the right to ' master, store, copy, edit, create derivative works, communicate, publish, show publicity and distribution 'these photos.

A Google spokesperson declares that they will not use your photos for commercial or promotional purposes without permission. They also said that they did not intend to make money from this service. But this guarantee cannot manage what will happen in the future or give you any legal protection.

What is the risk?

What if Google scans your photos and realizes you're wearing a Nike pond and then uses this information to send you Nike-related advertising images. In addition, photos are intended to significantly improve Google Now's features. The more Google knows about you, the more it guesses and gives you more accurate suggestions. So what is harm?

Information may leak or be stolen. Companies can share data behind us. Government agencies can also look at this information. Everything lies at a key point: Do you believe Google?

If you used backup services in Google+ on Android, the Google Photos app is nothing new. If you're comfortable using Google Maps, Gmail, Google Now and all other free Google services, you're putting your trust in Google. Google is collecting data about you and using it in a way that you don't know.

You can argue that this is not a problem because many others are using the same services as you. That's right. If you access the web online without using safeguards, you are being followed. If you contact online without encryption, your messages are not really private. If you use Facebook and Twitter, you are revealing a lot of information about yourself and you don't even know what they will be used for.

So everything lies in whether you accept to trade or not.