In an attempt to clarify its position, popular online storage company Dropbox tweaked its terms of service, privacy policy and security overview this weekend to add a bit of clarity to its current legalese. An email to members pointed them toward more detailed resources, noting that "we did this to make our policies easier to read and understand, and better reflect product improvements we've made to Dropbox." 

As noted by SlashGear, ominous references about granting Dropbox the rights to "use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works, perform, or publicly display" uploaded items resulted in confusion and some panic though the company's actual stance remains unchanged. And the timing of the update on a holiday weekend in the United States didn't help the beleaguered company either, not when coming so soon after the recent password debacle.

Dropbox reacted swiftly to the criticisms, and eventually tweaked its terms to more benign language that clarified that such rights are required in order for Dropbox to administer and operate the service. On one hand, I think part of the reaction is knee-jerk in nature. Of course, I also feel that many users have simply not sat down to seriously consider the privacy and security considerations of uploading unencrypted files to Dropbox.

Some users have continued to profess that they are not bothered by the fact that Dropbox can view their data, though the more security-conscious are likely to have migrated to other services. For example, Ed Bott of ZDNet has written about his switch from Dropbox to Windows Live Mesh on the basis of security.

For more:
- check out this article at SlashGear
- check out this article at Macworld

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