[ad_1]
Photoshop maker Adobe has confronted its user base with changes to its terms of service that, among other things, give it the right to review your files and existing projects in the name of content moderation.
According to Adobe, the changes clarify that the company “may access your content through automated and manual methods, such as for content review.”
The reason Adobe gives itself the right to review User Content is to detect and remove illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material, as well as offensive content or behavior, including spam and phishing.
The company also cited the advent of generative AI, a revolutionary technology that makes it much easier to create realistic images and human-sounding text and audio.
It’s not the only company doing this sort of thing. Google uses a mix of automated scanning and manual review to detection of CSAM and Microsoft does something similar.
What are Adobe’s changes?
There were a total of four changes in the Terms of Use, the first two being conducted in Sections 2.2 and 4.1. In Section 4.1, Adobe says that “we reserve the right (but have no obligation) to remove Content or restrict access to Content, Services and Software if any of Your Content is found to be in violation of the Terms.”
In addition, Section 14.1 shortened the number of days a user can file a formal dispute from 60 days to 30 days, while Section 5.3 states that Adobe now reserves the right to delete content from inactive accounts. Adobe says it will try to provide notification to inactive accounts to help them avoid deletion, but does not say how long an account must be inactive before account deletion takes place.
The first two changes have the creative community fighting over what amounts to the classic double-edged sword of privacy vs. security.
The verbiage appears to only target files that are uploaded to the Adobe Cloud as part of Adobe services.
Why are people angry about Adobe’s new terms of service?
The answer is simple enough. Adobe’s free, broad-based language could potentially give the company carte blanche to scan, view and review any content that passes through an Adobe app or Adobe Cloud servers. There is that annoyed creatorswho took to Reddit to complain about the changes, as many of them use Adobe products for professional work that is generally sensitive.
One such example is working under an NDA – content that is protected by a non-disclosure agreement. The creator signs such an agreement to access files with the expectation of keeping the files hidden from prying eyes until the date the non-disclosure agreement expires. Understandably, people in this space don’t want Adobe looking at something the creator doesn’t have permission to show.
In addition, creators who have tried to do something about it have met resistance from Adobe. Earlier this week, a concept artist Sam Santala posted on X about his experience of not being able to speak to an Adobe customer service representative, cancel his subscription to Adobe services, or even uninstall Photoshop without first agreeing to the new terms of service.
Adobe responds with an explanation
The terms of service update happened on February 17th. Adobe’s terms of service webpage says it was last updated on this date and is effective as of this date. It’s harder to say when users were notified of the change or first noticed it, except that complaints about it have grown in recent days.
However The register indicates that Adobe has been using similar language for years, so while the verbiage is clearer and more disturbing, it’s not intrinsically different from what it was before.
Adobe also says it only scans files in its cloud service, not on users’ computers. According to the software giant, “Adobe only performs content analysis on content processed or stored on Adobe’s servers; we do not analyze content processed or stored locally on your device.” This verbiage has not changed.
We reached out for comment and Adobe directed us to a Blog post from June 6th where he further clarifies his new position.
“The focus of this update was to be clearer about the improvements to our moderation processes that we have in place,” Adobe says. “Given the explosion of generative artificial intelligence and our commitment to responsible innovation, we’ve added more human moderation to our content submission review processes.”
The blog post also reiterates that Adobe does not train it Firefly AI using files hidden in Adobe Cloud.
[ad_2]
