Will you drop Dropbox over terms-of-service changes?

Courtesy of our colleagues at Softwarecrew, on Wednesday we posted a story about Dropbox terms of services changes that came as a surprise, if for no other reason than the service's earlier assertions that employees couldn't access subscribers' files nor anyone not authorized by the user. Suddenly that's changed, with Dropbox stating it will open your stuff to law enforcement. I put a poll in the story, and we asked your reaction to the changes. The results are in, and you're not happy.

"This is why you can't trust cloud anything when it comes to data privacy," writes commenter LurkerLito. "If it goes to the cloud you need to encrypt it yourself with your own trusted encryption program. No matter how much people assure you that their stuff is only accessible by you because of their encryption, that is never really true unless you encrypt it with your own tools."

Trust is certainly a big concern regarding cloud services. Can you trust the provider to protect your data and, as importantly, to not someday in the future change its privacy policies as Drobox has done. Before the change, the service boasted that "Dropbox employees are unable to view user files." Now it's "Dropbox cooperates with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process, which may require Dropbox to provide the contents of your private Dropbox."

Betanews reader Dave Walden responds: "If you are not breaking the law, these aren't the files we are looking for. Move along. Move along."

Still the ToS change is odd, since Dropbox's help docs still assert: "Nobody can see your private files in Dropbox unless you deliberately invite them or put them in your Public folder."

"Come on now, do you actually believe that not a single person or persons at Dropbox have not accessed files of all the accounts to see what is there -- and to copy said files?" Walden asks.

"This is disappointing that companies are caving in," Betanews reader boanergese writes. "Once you give up privacy you never get it back. The framers [of the Constitution] created the Fourth amendment for a purpose; to keep the goverment in check." Tyler Milton comments: "Let's just be realistic. Privacy is a relic of the past. "

I posted a poll in the earlier Dropbox story asking Betanews readers to check which statement best describes their reaction to the ToS changes. The majority of you are "really ticked off" -- 41.81 percent. Another 28.11 percent are "kind of peeved." That works out to more than 70 percent of respondents dissatisfied with the change. But the sample is small -- only 397 as I write -- so I am reposting the survey asking for additional responses.

Betanews reader Cristopher McRaeI offers pragmatic perspective: "I love how the vast majority of people who voted are upset. If you are a criminal, you shouldn't be using cloud services to store your information." Yes, but, Chris, you're assuming that most criminals are smart enough to know this.

"Why are people mad that Dropbox is following the law?" Commenter lvthunder asks. "Would you rather them thumb their nose at law enforcement and get shut down?"

There are 25 million Dropbox users, and I expect many Betanews readers are among them. For those of you using the service: Will you drop Dropbox over terms-of-service changes? If so, what will you use instead? If you were considering using Dropbox before the ToS changes, are your plans changed? Please answer in comments.