Finally I've had a chance to test Google's latest installment in the long-running series of half-baked betas, Google Chrome. Honestly, I will not rant in this post about how Google is taking over the web or whatnot, but I will ask a series of questions that I would like answered honestly and without any marketing gimmicks that are supposed to live up to Google's do-no-evil-we're-cute hype.

• Let's start with the license. A lot of people have noticed that the Google Chrome fine-print contains some really dodgy items (examples: CNet and read write web). The offending bit is this:

  11. Content license from you

  11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

  11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

  11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

  11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

  Ominous, no? This prompted Google's Matt Cutts to "dispel" this conspiracy theory. He went right to the heart of Googleborg and got a straight answer:

  In order to keep things simple for our users, we try to use the same set of legal terms (our Universal Terms of Service) for many of our products. Sometimes, as in the case of Google Chrome, this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don’t apply well to the use of that product. We are working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome.

  Gee, Google, I didn't know we can pick and choose terms and conditions to apply to some products and not to others. That's just not the point of a license: either it applies as a whole or it doesn't. It says so in the terms and conditions themselves:

  20.2 The Terms constitute the whole legal agreement between you and Google and govern your use of the Services (but exclude any services that Google may provide to you under a separate written agreement) and completely replace any prior agreements between you and Google in relation to the Services.

  So please, stop playing around and provide the true license.

• While we're on the license: Chrome is Open Source, yet the license isn't. Why not use an OSI-approved license? Yes, even for the binary. Without this, you can't claim that Chrome is really open source. Unless...

• Suppose Chrome isn't open source. Suppose you can get the code but the binary comes (or will come) with lots of other gadgetry that Google approves of. Let's, oh, take an example of no way to block adverts. But it's open source! Well yes, it's open source if you care to download the code and know what to do with it. To the rest of us, the average Google user really, having access to the source code is irrlevant. So Google can bundle whatever it wants and no one will know the difference.

• Speaking of licenses and adverts: what is section 17 for?

• The interface: I don't like it personally but it's OK. It's like it doesn't want you to do anything - don't you dare find the Under The Hood options. Also, I find using the window's top frame as the tab bar to be very confusing and wrong on so many levels (the tabs are part of the window not *the* window!). The question here is: why? What logical argument places an interface element in the window border?

• Really, when does Chrome contact Google? Matt Cutts posted about this and also Twittered to a quick privacy review that gave Chrome a thumbs up. But let's quote Matt:

  If you are typing a search or url in the address bar, Google Chrome will talk to the current search service to try to offer useful query/url suggestions.

  Search suggestions are fine - great actually - because they help me search. Querying Google (the default search service) about URLs is off limits. Let's not mince words here: some URLs *are* private. What kinds? Flickr protected albums for one. To share a private album in Flickr, it creates a unique URL that you share with your friends. No one else knows it so it's a decent enough protection for this scenario. Why does Google want to know? And does Google log it? Will the data be magically incorporated into Google Website Trends or Analytics?

So until Google figures out its license, and until Google gives us straight answers, Chrome is uninstalled from my machine.

What do you think? Comments below please.