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google-research / open-covid-19-data

Open source aggregation pipeline for public COVID-19 data, including hospitalization/ICU/ventilator numbers for many countries.
Apache License 2.0
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License for symptoms and mobility data is unclear #187

Open capnrefsmmat opened 3 years ago

capnrefsmmat commented 3 years ago

Thanks for making all this data publicly available. We are using the COVID-19 Search Trends symptoms dataset, and when we distribute our work we want to be sure the license terms are clear. However, the README simply says:

To download or use the data, you must agree to the Google Terms of Service.

But from the terms, I can't really figure out what kinds of use, modification, and redistribution are acceptable. The most relevant section I can find states:

Some of our services include content that belongs to Google — for example, many of the visual illustrations you see in Google Maps. You may use Google’s content as allowed by these terms and any service-specific additional terms, but we retain any intellectual property rights that we have in our content. Don’t remove, obscure, or alter any of our branding, logos, or legal notices. If you want to use our branding or logos, please see the Google Brand Permissions page.

But there are no "service-specific additional terms" for this data, as far as I can see, so I don't know whether, for example, Google wants to prohibit distribution of derivative works.

Ideally it'd be great if the data could be released under the terms of a license such as the Open Data Commons Attribution License, which is designed for this purpose, or even released into the public domain, but any terms that make clear the acceptable uses would be great.

shekelto commented 3 years ago

Hi there,

Can you clarify what is the usage you are planning? For example redistribution is usually prohibited. But many other usages are totally fine.