Nokia ToS weirdness Part II: Sports Tracker
Nokia Sports Tracker is a nifty service (and S60 application) that allows you to store your walking/running/cycling/etc trip data in a file, and then upload it to the service. This file will contain the GPS coordinates you were on during your trip, allowing generation of nice graphs of average speed at the different parts of the trip, a map of the trip and so on. The data can also be exported and then imported to Google Earth of Google Maps for example. You can also upload pictures you took on the trip, and you’ll be able to see what position on the map you took them at.
It all seems free (for now) and nice, but a closer look at the Terms of Service does reveal something unpleasant.
Section 6 “Feedback and other submissions by you” contains the following excerpts:
By submitting any content or feedback (“Material”) to any of Nokia’s servers, for example, by e-mail or via the Site, you agree that
(…)
(c) you own the Material or have the unlimited right to provide it to Nokia and you will grant Nokia worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free and assignable license to use, reproduce and have reproduced, modify and have modified, publicly perform and publicly display such Material and distribute reproduced and modified copies thereof. Nokia may incorporate the Material or any concepts described in it in its products without any accountability or liability;
Now, in the Section 8 “Privacy” there is a statement that is somewhat in discord with the one above:
Nokia will not supply your personal data to third parties unless you specify so, or is legally required to do so.
But it’s coming in a bit late, after all that careful wording that allows Nokia to do whatever it wants to with your data. Nokia just doesn’t seem to learn. I earlier blogged about Share on Ovi having a very similar Terms of Service. The wording of that part is almost the same, so I guess it does come from their legal department. They obviously do not seem to think about the whole picture.
I guess I’ll be looking forward to Google offering a similar service; at least they have somewhat sane privacy policy and terms of service in their current services.
