[onethumb]

Google's "free" unlimited photo storage comes with some costs. First, they compress and resize your photos. They're pretty public about this, and they do offer paid plans which don't do this. If you're fine with that, great, it's a good deal. Second, it's widely understood that they're likely mining data in your photos to profile and advertise to you. I can't know this for sure, since I can't see their source code, but other research shows fairly strong correlation evidence. (No idea if paying for storage removes this or not).

[msravi]

> but other research shows fairly strong correlation evidence

I'd be very interested in looking at this research and evidence of correlation between ads and photo data. Can you please cite the reference?

[bjelkeman-again]

You should ask someone in Europe who use the same tools to do a GDPR request on their data. Something interesting may show up.

[fyfy18]

No need, its spelled out pretty clearly in Google's TOS [0]:

> Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

> When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

> Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.

[0] https://policies.google.com/terms