Taking illegal, explicit content on Drive ‘very seriously’: Google

A Google spokesperson told IANS that "Drive has clear policies that prohibit the distribution of content that contains malware, copyrighted and sexually-explicit material".

New Delhi: Alarmed at the spread of illegal software licenses, movies, games and porn content by users on Google Drive, the company on Wednesday said it takes such issues very seriously and take appropriate action when find such content that violates its policies.

IANS had reported that pirates of the Internet are freely storing and sharing illegal software licenses, movies, games and porn content and most of which have allegedly been indexed in Google Search as some Drive users made such links public in their individual accounts.

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A Google spokesperson told IANS that “Drive has clear policies that prohibit the distribution of content that contains malware, copyrighted and sexually-explicit material”.

“We take these issues very seriously. When content violates our Abuse Programme Policies, we take appropriate action,” the spokesperson added.

According to independent cyber security researcher Rajshekhar Rajaharia, thousands of such explicit and illegal content is being circulated via Google Drive, in zipped compressed files.

“Apart from thousands of porn videos, at least 25,000-30,000 links are likely sharing illegal content like malware, software, movies, games and what not. One can search such links in Google Drive at ease. Just do a search and download at will,” Rajaharia had told IANS, while sharing several such screenshots.

Google Drive is a file storage and synchronisation service that allows users to store files on their servers, synchronise files across devices, and share files.

The Google Drive users must be aware of their actions.

“They should not make pirated movies and other content public on Google Drive as this will lead to indexing on Search. They must keep their content private or share links with people they know and trust,” Rajaharia emphasised.