Google Drive Launches in Australia

Meet Drive, Google’s new cloud service in place of Google Documents that allows users to store and sync over 30 different types of files. The service launched yesterday in Australia and is expected to be “rolled-out progressively over the coming weeks,” according to The Australian.

It costs nothing to gain five Gigabytes of storage and just $2.49 per month for another 20 Gigabytes – much cheaper than Dropbox and other services critics have drawn parallels to since the launch. Third-party developers will rejoice in its key feature: outside applications will run in the Google Drive browser with “full collaboration capabilities.”

As of now, Google Drive can operate these programs:

·         AutoCad WS

·         Aviary Creative Tools

·         Balsamiq Mockup

·         Desmos social graphing calculator

·         DocuSign, Floorplanner

·         Gantler productivity

·         Hellofax, Lucidchart

·         Lulu eBook publishing

·         MindMeister mind maps

·         Nivio, Pixlr Editor and Pixlr Express

·         Revisu, SlideRocket

·         Smartsheet

·         WeVideo

However, the service has recently hit a wall with privacy advocates concerned about the security of their documents in the Drive cloud.

“My big concern with Google Drive is that they already have all my emails, web analytics, and search terms. Do I really want to give them even more data?," a concerned Dropbox user said on the website’s forum.

Google insists, however, that “what belongs to you stays yours” and that most competitors’ Terms of Service are laid out similarly.

"You own your files and control their sharing, plain and simple. Our Terms of Service enable us to give you the services you want – so if you decide to share a document with someone, or open it on a different device, you can,” a Google spokesman told Computerworld.