When Free Really Isn’t Free
by Stuart Livesey
The cost of doing business for a small business - even a home office type business - is incredible and if you’re just at the point of setting one up meeting those costs can be a hurdle that’s hard to climb over. At times like that it’s great to be able to find something you need that comes at zero cost. Freebies attract consumers like bees to a honeypot and small business people are no different.
Computer software that you might need to run your small business can be a major hit to your financial resources. Here in Australia the cost of a suite of programmes like Microsoft Office can run up to around $900 and that can seem like a lot of money to spend when someone like Google offers a similar suite of products for free.
But are those products really free? If you read the terms of service for that particular Google application you might actually find that you’re giving Google something you weren’t expecting - something like:
“By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, modify, publish and distribute such content on Google services for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services.”
You can read more about the cost of Google’s ‘free’ application here
