by Larry Magid
This article first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

There has been a lot of debate and hand wringing over whether the Internet and social media have redefined “privacy,” but while the Internet makes it easier to share, it doesn’t force us to share. It’s a matter of making choices and balancing the benefits of sharing with the risks, whether significant or trivial.

Recently, Consumer Reports made a big deal out of millions of people using Facebook’s ”Like” button to publicly acknowledge their interest in pages about medical conditions, for example. Some shared their birth dates, and others where they plan to go on a certain day or even their location at that very moment.

It would be bad if Facebook forced people to share that information, but what’s wrong with allowing them to? Sharing your birth day almost certainly brings you birthday greetings, and though it could contribute to identify theft, it probably won’t. Lots of people are anxious to share their travels with friends and even strangers, which, in theory, could be used against you by a burglar, but the odds of that actually happening are awfully low.

While I’m a big supporter of federal laws that require medical providers to protect patient privacy, there’s no law against talking publicly about your own conditions. For some, it’s a great way to get support and potentially life-saving advice. Jeff Jarvis (buzzmachine.com) publicly blogged about his prostate cancer and his heart arrhythmia and said he “gained tremendous benefit (by) sharing.” He learned from others and he hopes “to be one more guy to convince you men to get your PSA checked.” That strikes me as a good thing.

In its story, Consumer Reports warned people about “liking” a page about a medical condition because it could reveal “details an insurer might use against you,” but insurance companies already know all about our medical conditions. They document each procedure and — as many people sadly know — those records are often used to deny coverage or raise your rates if you change policies or even if you change companies.

People worry about what they choose to share on Facebook but may not even think about what they’re already sharing with corporations. Several years ago — long before the advent of social networking — I made a last minute decision to fly from New York to Los Angeles instead of flying home to the Bay Area. As I lunched at Jerry’s Deli in Studio City I realized that no one, not even my family, knew where I was, but the airline and the rental car company did. My credit card company knew where I had been and what I bought and my cell phone knew my location and who I spoke with. Those loyalty cards we use at grocery stores to save a few pennies reveal what we buy. Do you worry whether the store will tell your health insurance company about the junk food you buy? That’s not likely, but Safeway’s privacy policy says, “We may also share personal information with our affiliate companies.”

Facebook could — if it wants to — compile a dossier on its members that paints a pretty good picture of who they are, how they live their lives and who their friends are, but to do that, the company would have to rely mostly on information you chose to share on its service or affiliated apps and web pages. It could violate its own privacy policies and illegally reveal that information without your permission but so could banks, insurance companies, phone companies, grocery stores and even medical providers. And all of these companies can and will disclose this information to courts or government authorities if served with the proper papers.

I’m not completely blasé when it comes to privacy and the Internet. I am worried about how many mobile and social networking apps we entrust with personal information, including our location and phone records, and that some store this information on servers that could be hacked or even turned over to third parties. I worry about whether the developers of these hundreds of thousands of apps have good security and, of course, there is reason to even worry about security of major companies and government agencies — like Sony and the Veteran’s Administration — whose security has already been breached. I worry about the government possibly misusing warrants and subpoena powers to access my information or the passage of new laws to make it even easier for government agencies to access personal data.

I don’t think web tracking is necessarily a bad thing if it’s used to target ads that you’ll find more relevant and that help subsidize valuable free ad-supported services, but I do agree with the Obama administration that we should have the ability to know if we’re being tracked, who is tracking us, what information they’re collecting and the ability to stop or control it.

Facebook has made some changes to what it calls its “data use policy,” which is essentially the same as its privacy policy. The company has also added a  ”Facebook Terms and Policies” hub that serves as a central landing page for all of Facebook’s policies, including a link to its Data Use Policy.  Facebook also published an ”Explanation of changes,” and posted a track changes document that shows the changes with additions and deleted text highlighted in red.  The company’s  data use policy document has little light bulbs to highlight important points that it thinks people need to pay attention to.

Mostly minor changes

Most of the changes are fairly minor and some are designed to provide extra information per an agreement between Facebook and the Irish Data Protection Commission.

For example, the company added language that states exactly what information about users is always made public such as name, profile picture and cover photo, networks you’re part of and your user name and ID. It also says that “your age range, locale (or language) and gender can also be made public.  Some of that public information, such as your profile picture, can be deleted from your timeline.”

Showing ads on other sites

The company previously stated it we might place ads on other sites but clarified that those those “may or may not include social context (such as whether your friends have “liked” a particular business).”  What this means is that it’s possible that if you “Like” something  on Facebook that information could appear in an ad on another site, just as it can now appear on Facebook.  It’s important to know that clicking a “Like” button is making a public statement.

The company clarified that it can retain data about you “for as long as necessary to provide services to users and others,” and that inlcudes information from advertisers.

In its explanation on data use, the company makes it clear that you can control the audience for everything you post on the service, each time you post.

There is also a clear explanation of what data Facebook recives about its users. This includes every time you look at another person’s profile, send a message, search for a friend or click on an ad. They also can receive metadata  associated with what up upload such as the time and location of where a photo was taken. And, of course, they receive data from the device you’re using such as your IP address or your GPS coordinates from a mobile device.

Facebook acknowledged that it sometimes gets data from advertising partners, customers and other third parties “that helps us (or them) deliver ads.

Apps and third party websites

The company now says that “If an app wants additional information, they must get your permission. If you do this, the app can access, store and update that information,” but “Once you haven’t used the app for a while, however, that app won’t be able to continue updating this additional information until you give it permission again.” But they have added a tip ” to remind you that apps have their own policies around how they handle the data they receive and that you should contact an app directly if you want your information deleted.”

Facebook says that when you use the “login with Facebook” option in apps or other sites that it will “scramble your email address and then instruct the other website to scramble it in the same way.” That allows Facebook to identify it’s you without having to send your email address to the other site.

Targeted ads but not shared information

Facebook says that it doesn’t share information with advertisers but it does target ads based on who you are. So, you could see an ad that’s targeted to your gender, age-range, where you live or even who your friends are but Facebook is delivering that ad — the advertiser is not given that information.

What you let them share

Facebook, its advertisers and its app developers may share information about you if you allow them to through permissions that you’re asked to check when you install apps which is why it’s important to pay attention to those permissions and know how to change them which you can do from the Ads, Apps and Websites section of your Privacy Settings page.

For more, see this on News.com, this  AP story and this on TechCrunch.

Disclosure: I’m co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook.

Facebook, like all sites with user content, has had to battle against people using the service to post and distribute illegal child pornography.  In my CNET News post, I try to put the issue in perspective and quote law enforcement experts and the President of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children who say it’s an Internet-wide problem.

Read the post here

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(1 minute CBS News segment on subject with Ernie Allen, President of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children)

This column first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

by Larry Magid

A few days ago, I attended Imagine K12‘s “demo day” where a group of startups in the education space pitched their companies to potential funders.

As I sat and listened to these mostly young entrepreneurs, I wondered which ones might disrupt education just as technology has changed other industries such as the music and newspaper businesses.

While public K-12 schools are free and parents sometimes have a choice of where to send their child (including home schooling), education is one product families are required to consume. What’s more, the people who work at these schools are in a position of authority over their customers. The grades that teachers hand to students can have an enormous impact on their future. That sure is different from the commercial world where the customers’ collective satisfaction, in most cases, determines the success or failure of the business.

It strikes me that it’s time for technology to start disrupting education. I’m not calling for the abolition of schools. My wife and daughter are public school teachers and I am the beneficiary of 20 years of public education with three degrees from state universities, including a doctorate in education. If anything, I want to see more resources going into education.

But I want those resources to be used smartly, not just by taking advantage of hardware and software that can improve education, but also by using social media to supplement what teachers do and make it increasingly possible for people to learn outside the confines of a classroom.

Khan Academy is an example. This not-for-profit free Web resource offers thousands of videos on academic subjects “to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.” The quality of the instruction is world-class. And there are plenty of other great sources of educational videos, e-books, learning games, academic papers and other resources available to anyone with an Internet connection.

You can even “go” to Harvard and MIT without being admitted, paying tuition or leaving home. The two universities last week announced a $60 million partnership called edX that lets anyone in the world take online courses for free. Stanford, Yale and other universities have similar experiments.

Clearly, there are lots of new ways to learn. But there is often a disconnect between what people know and what their “credentials” say they know.

What should matter is not so much your degree or grade point average but how well equipped you are for the next stage in life. Unfortunately employers and colleges often either ignore those real-life credentials. It’s understandable, especially at places that have far more applicants than openings, but it’s also regrettable both for capable people without credentials and employers and schools that may miss out on some great candidates because they can’t easily quantify their skills.

For that reason I was particularly intrigued by LearningJar, a startup that allows you to “easily validate and store” what you’ve learned whether it’s from an online source or an offline experience. The site lets you document your experiences including educational videos you’ve watched or courses you’ve taken on or offline. It categorizes them by subject and, according to the site, “monitors your learning progress and uses algorithms to create a dynamic learning graph, so you can track your development.”

Another company that caught my eye was TapToLearn, which is developing casual games to teach young children subjects such as math and grammar. These apps, which run on iPads and other mobile devices, both deliver and test children in ways that are fun and compelling. Where is it written that math, grammar and spelling have to be boring? I recently agreed to be on an advisory board for PBS Kids, which is also developing some great learning games for children to be used both at home and school.

Socrative showed off a product to change the way teachers deliver quizzes. Rather than passing out those dreaded paper tests, teachers who employ the Socrative student response system have them pull out their laptop, iPad, iPod touch to answer true/false or multiple-choice questions, engage in interactive learning games or type in their responses to questions and issues which can be immediately projected on a screen and shared with classmates. Depending on the creativity of the teacher, technology like this could be used to either automate old-fashioned testing or innovate with new ways for learning, sharing and evaluation.

Although they weren’t at the event, I’m also impressed by Grockit, which uses social media to empower students to help each other prepare for standardized tests. I’d like to see this technology expand beyond test preparation to broader learning.

It strikes me that some of the world’s best teachers have never donned caps and gowns. They are the people around us ranging from that brilliant auto mechanic down the street to that insightful social anthropologist 12,000 miles away. Thanks to technology, the world can be our teacher and the Internet our classroom.

Cobra Tag lets you find your key chain with your phone and your phone with your key chian

I have a key fob or “clicker” as most people call them, that helps me find my car in a parking lot by beeping the horn but I’ve often wished it were the other way around. Although I do rely on that fob from time to time to find my car, I’m more likely to misplace my keys than my car.

It usually happens at home. The good news is that I’m usually pretty sure they’re around somewhere, but the bad news is that I’m always tearing around the house in a panic until I find them. I also occasionally misplace my wallet and my phone.

When the phone is missing I usually just call it which works as long as the ringer is on but I often have it on vibrate so everyone in the house is instructed to be very quiet while we try hear the buzzing sound.

I’ll have to wait awhile for a solution for my wallet, but now there’s a product to help find keys and phones (Android, Blackberry and soon iPhone) with a single click.

It’s called Cobra Tag, a $59.95 sensor that’s about the same size as most key fobs that you attach to your keychain. The  Tag comes to life with an app from Phone Halo, a Santa Barbara company that developed the software behind the product.

The phone and the fob talk with each other via Bluetooth – the same radio technology that’s used to connect phones to wireless headsets or speakers. It takes only seconds to “pair” the phone and the fob and a couple of minutes to download and install the app. Once that’s done, if your keys are missing you launch the app, touch the “Start Ringing Device” icon and the device starts to chirp. Bluetooth has a range of about 100 feet but if your phone and the Cobra are separated by that distance, the Tag takes a GPS fix on its location and sends that to the phone.

It also works the other way.  If you can’t find your paired phone or tablet, just press the button on the Cobra Tag key fob and the phone starts to beep.  And, if your phone and keys get separated by more than about 100 feet, you hear a beep and can locate the keys via GPS with a map and the approximate address where you left them.

The app also works with many Bluetooth headsets. If you misplace your headset it will cause it to beep.  The app is free and you don’t need a Cobra Tag to track your Bluetooth headset.

You charge the Cobra Tag by plugging it into a USB port of a computer or a USB charger. The battery, according to the company, lasts about 10 days.

The tag is too big for a wallet but smaller products for wallets and other items are coming according to Phone Halo chief technology officer Chris Herbert.  The new generation of tags will take advantage of “Bluetooth low energy,”  a feature in Bluetooth 4.0 that enable devices to consume far less power which enable them to have much smaller batteries. This technology is already compatible with the iPhone 4s and some other smart phones, tablets and PCs.

There are other wireless key finders on the market including one called Wireless Key Finder and another called Click ‘n Dig, but these are one-way devices that don’t work with or find smart phones or any other devices. Also, you need to have the transmitter with you which is true with Cobra Tag but most people carry their phones with them all the time so you should be in good shape as long as you don’t lose your phone and keys at the same time (which, I’m afraid to admit, I have).

Cobra Tag is available from Amazon and other online retailers.

Here are step-by-step instructions on my Forbes.com blog.

See my post on News.com

This column first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Google Drive lets you sync data between multiple devices

by Larry Magid

Google  finally got around to announcing its long-awaited Google Drive, which lets you store files on it servers, sync them to other PCs or Macs, and open them on Android devices and — soon — on iPhones and iPads.

It’s similar to services such as Dropbox, SugarSync and Trend Micro’s SafeSync, but it’s also integrated into what used to be called Google Docs, which makes Google Drive a hybrid between a cloud storage service and a cloud computing platform.

While other services mostly store your files, Google Drive — with some file types — also allows you to view and edit them because of the Google Docs integration. Google Docs was Google’s Web-based computing platform for creating, editing, storing and sharing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings and forms.

This integration can lead to a bit of confusion. To the extent that Google provides cloud-based software for such tasks as word processing and spreadsheets, it’s actually functioning as a remote computer. But when it’s just storing files you create on your PC, it’s acting as a network storage device.

Just as with Dropbox and most competing products, Google Drive’s installation software creates a folder on your machine’s hard drive called Google Drive, and any files that you store in that folder are synced to Google’s servers. If you have Google Drive on more than one computer, the files are synced to that machine too.

To test it out, I started writing today’s column using Microsoft Word on my Mac. I saved the Word file to Google Drive and then walked over to my Windows PC where the file was already waiting for me in that machine’s Google Drive folder.

I then walked over to my wife’s PC, which doesn’t have Google Drive software installed, and accessed the file by logging into the Google Drive website. I was immediately able to read the file. But to make changes, I needed to either export it into a Google document or download it to her PC to open with Microsoft Word. Either way, I had immediate access to the file but the process was far from seamless because now I had two files — the original Word file and the Google document that I had just edited.

I then grabbed my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Android tablet, on which I was able to read and edit that Google document or open Word files. But as with the Web interface, it was not immediately clear which was the latest — the Word doc or the Google doc that I had extracted from that Word doc.

You can be excused if all this seems a bit confusing. It was confusing for me at first, and I think that’s a problem with this hybrid model of cloud storage and cloud computing: if you’re not careful, you can wind up with multiple versions of the same document.

Google Drive, like Dropbox and some other cloud storage services, does automatically save old versions of files. So if you make a mistake or just long for a previous version, you can access and download it from Google Drive on the Web. The service automatically deletes previous versions only when they are more than 30 days old or if there are more than 100 versions of that file.

One big advantage of cloud-based services is the ability to share and collaborate. As co-director of a nonprofit, I work on a lot of documents, presentations and spreadsheets with my co-workers, and we have made frequent use of Google Docs and Dropbox.

We use Google Docs when we want to collaborate in real time. If my colleague and I are in the document at the same time, I can actually see what changes she’s making as she makes them. It’s a great way to quickly craft a document. Dropbox and Google Drive are also a great way to store documents that we all need to access, including graphic files, spreadsheets and Word docs.

But while Google Drive allows you both to access to your PC and Mac files and collaborate in real time on Google documents, I do worry a little about users being confused by the various types of documents. For example, if you store a Word or Excel doc in Google Drive and open it in Google Docs, you should be able to modify the file and have the changed version immediately synced back to all PCs (with a backup of previous versions, of course).

I think this is actually a transitional product. My sense is that, in the long term, PC or Mac-based editing is likely to diminish as we move more of our data computing tasks to the cloud, but that won’t be reality for most of us until high-speed Internet access is ubiquitous no matter where in the world we happen to be. We’re not there yet.

The Obama administration has threatened to veto H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), because it “fails to provide authorities to ensure that the Nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties safeguards.”  The statement went on to say that ”The American people expect their Government to enhance security without undermining their privacy and civil liberties.” Scroll down for the complete White House statement.

The bill is designed to supersede other laws and allow private companies and the federal government to share information among one another. The goal is to protect websites and network infrastructure from hackers, whether they be private individuals or organizations (like Anonymous) or individuals or foreign governments, like China. It would protect private companies from lawsuits that might arise from their sharing personal information.

CISPA specifically says that “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a cybersecurity provider … may, for cybersecurity purposes … share such cyber threat information with any other entity designated by such protected entity, including, if specifically designated, the Federal Government.” (Full text is here)

CISPA is bi-partisan bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) and co-sponsored by a cross section of representatives ranging from liberal Silicon Valley Congresswoman Anna Eshoo to conservative Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Several tech companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Google, have expressed support for CISPA. These same companies were opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).

Nearly 800,000 people have so-far signed an online petition urging Congress to “immediately drop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).”

In a FAQ on its site, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org) argues CISPA would allow companies to hand over customers’ personal information, including email to the government. “Under CISPA, companies can hand ‘cyber threat information’ to any government agency,” said EFF. “which then passes that information to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Once it’s in DHS’s hands, the bill says that DHS can then hand the information to other intelligence agencies, including the NationalSecurity Agency, at its discretion.”  The organization worries that it could “lead the companies and government to surveil citizens for a host of reasons beyond critical cybersecurity threats.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims that CISPA would give the government ”unprecedented powers to snoop through people’s personal information — medical records, private emails, financial information — all without a warrant, proper oversight or limits.”

A backgrounder on the bill on the site of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said, ”This important legislation would enable cyber threat sharing and provide clear authority for the private sector to defend its own networks, all while providing strong protections for privacy and civil liberties.” The backgrounder said that the bill has been “narrowed to avoid any misunderstanding and to clarify that it is intended only to defend against attempts by advanced cyber hackers, from countries like China, to gain unauthorized access to networks, including efforts to gain such access to steal private or government information.”

CNET reported that “House of Representatives members have proposed 44 amendments in advance of a vote later this week

Here is the full statement from Whitehouse.gov. The Whitehouse’s PDF is here.

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

H.R. 3523 – Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
(Rep. Rogers, R-MI, and 112 cosponsors)

The Administration is committed to increasing public-private sharing of information about
cybersecurity threats as an essential part of comprehensive legislation to protect the Nation’s vital information systems and critical infrastructure. The sharing of information must be conducted in a manner that preserves Americans’ privacy, data confidentiality, and civil liberties and recognizes the civilian nature of cyberspace. Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, information sharing, while an essential component of comprehensive legislation, is not alone enough to protect the Nation’s core critical infrastructure from cyber threats. Accordingly, the Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, in its current form.

H.R. 3523 fails to provide authorities to ensure that the Nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected while repealing important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties safeguards. For example, the bill would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the Government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information. Moreover, such sharing should be accomplished in a way that permits appropriate sharing within the Government without undue restrictions imposed by private sector companies that share information.

The bill also lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes. Citizens have a right to know that corporations will be held legally accountable for failing to safeguard personal information adequately. The Government, rather than establishing a new antitrust exemption under this bill, should ensure that information is not shared for anti-competitive purposes.

In addition, H.R. 3523 would inappropriately shield companies from any suits where a company’s actions are based on cyber threat information identified, obtained, or shared under this bill, regardless of whether that action otherwise violated Federal criminal law or results in damage or loss of life. This broad liability protection not only removes a strong incentive to improving cybersecurity, it also potentially undermines our Nation’s economic, national security, and public safety interests.

H.R. 3523 effectively treats domestic cybersecurity as an intelligence activity and thus, significantly departs from longstanding efforts to treat the Internet and cyberspace as civilian spheres. The Administration believes that a civilian agency – the Department of Homeland Security – must have a central role in domestic cybersecurity, including for conducting and overseeing the exchange of cybersecurity information with the private sector and with sector specific Federal agencies.

The American people expect their Government to enhance security without undermining their privacy and civil liberties. Without clear legal protections and independent oversight information sharing legislation will undermine the public’s trust in the Government as well as in the Internet by undermining fundamental privacy, confidentiality, civil liberties, and consumer protections. The Administration’s draft legislation, submitted last May, provided for information sharing with clear privacy protections and strong oversight by the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

The Administration’s proposal also provided authority for the Federal Government to ensure that the Nation’s critical infrastructure operators are taking the steps necessary to protect the American people. The Congress must also include authorities to ensure our Nation’s most vital critical infrastructure assets are properly protected by meeting minimum cybersecurity performance standards. Industry would develop these standards collaboratively with the Department of HomelandSecurity. Voluntary measures alone are insufficient responses to the growing danger of cyber threats.

Legislation should address core critical infrastructure vulnerabilities without sacrificing the fundamental values of privacy and civil liberties for our citizens, especially at a time our Nation is facing challenges to our economic well-being and national security. The Administration looks forward to continuing to engage with the Congress in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to enact cybersecurity legislation to address these critical issues. However, for the reasons stated herein, if H.R. 3523 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

Google has launched a cloud-based storage service called Google Drive that competes with Dropbox, Sugarsync and other cloud storage systems to offer both free and paid storage that synchronizes with PCs and Macs.

When you sign-up for the service, you are invited to install software on a PC or a Mac that creates a special folder on your machine. Any files placed in that folder are automatically copied to Google’s servers so that you can access them online or on any machine that’s connected to your account. So, when I place a file in my Google Drive folder on my Windows PC, it’s also available on my Mac or on my Google Drive web page.

Google Drive is also the new name for Google Docs — a service which, for years, has allowed people to create, edit, store and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations along with forms and drawings.  Now the files that you place in your Google Drive folder on your PC or Mac are stored alongside any files you create in what used to be called Google Docs.

What that means is that the files are accessible on devices and online. With some file types, like Microsoft Word and JPG images, you can view or edit them from the web using Google’s cloud-based editing tools. But you can download any type of file to any PC or Mac that you use to access your Google Drive account so, for example, if you’re visiting a friend you could grab a file from the web and access it on his or her PC or Mac.

Signing Up

You sign up for Google Drive at drive.google.com and logging in with your Google account, but you may not get access right away. Some users are being asked to click a Notify Me link and will get an email once it’s “ready.”

You may have to request access to Google Drive and wait until "it's ready"

Pricing & Competition

With Google Drive, everyone gets 5 free gigabytes of storage (Dropbox gives you 2 free GB) and you can purchase 25 GB of storage for $2.49 a month or 100 GB for $4.99 a month and, if you’re really a data hog, you can buy storage by the terabyte ($49.99 a month for 1 TB up to $799.99 for 16 TB).  A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. These prices are considerably less than Dropbox, but I’m sure the Dropbox folks are re-thinking their current prices. Sugarsync also provides 5 free GB with prices for additional storage ranging from $49.99 a year for 30 GB to $399.99 for 500 GB. One difference between SugarSync and both Google Drive and Dropbox is that SugarSync can synchronize any folders on a PC or a Mac. All of these services support Android and Apple’s iOS (though Google’s iOS app isn’t quite ready)

Syncs and Links

After installing the Google Drive software to my PC and Mac, the first thing I noticed were that all of my existing Google Docs and spreadsheets appeared to be available on my machines’ hard drives, but I then realized that these were actually links, not the actual files. When I clicked on them I was taken to the web site of what used to be Google Docs (now Google Drive) where I could view and edit them. This works fine if you’re online but won’t work if you don’t have an Internet connection. PC or Mac files that you save to or drag to the Google Drive folder on your machine, however, are synced to the cloud and to other devices so you can edit the files regardless of whether you have Internet access.

Within a few minutes I was productively using Google Drive. I simply copied and saved files to the new Google Drive folder on both my PC and Mac and and soon found these same files on the other machine and on the web site. For all practical purposes, the process was very close to my experience with Dropbox.

Google Drive folder in Windows