Google Terms of Service

Effective 22 May 2024 | Archived versions | Download PDF

Country version: Germany

What’s covered in these terms

We know it’s tempting to skip these Terms of Service, but it’s important to establish what you can expect from us as you use Google services, and what we expect from you.

These Terms of Service reflect the way that Google’s business works, the laws that apply to our company, and certain things that we’ve always believed to be true. As a result, these Terms of Service help define Google’s relationship with you as you interact with our services. For example, these terms include the following topic headings:

Understanding these terms is important because, to use our services, you must accept these terms. We encourage you to download these terms for future reference. We make these terms, and all previous versions, available at all times here.

Besides these terms, we also publish a Privacy Policy. Although it’s not part of these terms, we encourage you to read it to better understand how you can update, manage, export and delete your information.

Terms

Service provider

In the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, Google services are provided by:

Google Ireland Limited
incorporated and operating under the laws of Ireland
(Registration number: 368047/VAT number: IE6388047V)

Gordon House, Barrow Street
Dublin 4
Ireland

Age requirements

If you’re under the age required to manage your own Google Account, you must have your parent or legal guardian’s permission to use a Google Account. Please ask your parent or legal guardian to read these terms with you.

If you’re a parent or legal guardian who has accepted these terms, and you allow your child to use the services, then to the extent permitted by applicable law, you’re responsible for your child’s activity on the services.

Some Google services have additional age requirements as described in their service-specific additional terms and policies.

Your relationship with Google

These terms help define the relationship between you and Google. When we speak of 'Google', 'we', 'us' and 'our', we mean Google Ireland Limited and its affiliates. Broadly speaking, we give you permission to access and use our services if you agree to follow these terms, which reflect how Google's business works and how we earn money.

What you can expect from us

Provide a broad range of useful services

We provide a broad range of services that are subject to these terms, including:
  • apps and sites (like Search and Maps)
  • platforms (like Google Shopping)
  • integrated services (like Maps embedded in other companies' apps or sites)
  • devices (like Google Nest and Pixel)

Many of these services also include content that you can stream or interact with.

Our services are designed to work together, making it easier for you to move from one activity to the next. For example, if your Calendar event includes an address, you can click on that address and Maps can show you how to get there.

Develop, improve and update Google services

While we use a broad definition of 'services' throughout these terms as described above, applicable law draws distinctions between 'digital content', 'services' and 'goods' in certain situations. That’s why we use the more specific terms in this section and the Legal guarantee section.

We’re constantly developing new technologies and features to improve our services. For example, we use artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide you with simultaneous translations and to better detect and block spam and malware.

As part of the continual evolution of our digital content, services and goods, we make modifications such as adding or removing features and functionalities, increasing or decreasing usage limits and offering new digital content or services or discontinuing old ones. We may also change our digital content or services for these other reasons:

  • to adapt to new technologies
  • to reflect increases or decreases in the number of people who use a particular service
  • to respond to key changes in the licences and partnerships that we have with others
  • to prevent abuse or harm
  • to address legal, regulatory, safety or security issues

In particular, we sometimes make legally-required updates, which are modifications that keep digital content, services or goods in conformity with the law. We make these updates to our digital content, services and goods for safety or security reasons and to make sure that they meet the quality standards that you expect, such as those described in the Legal guarantee section. We may automatically install updates that address significant safety or security risks. For other updates, you can choose whether you want them installed.

We maintain a rigorous product research programme, so before we change or stop offering a service, we carefully consider the reasonableness of the change or deprecation, your interests as a user, your reasonable expectations and the potential impact on you and others. We only change or stop offering services for valid reasons.

If a modification negatively affects your ability to access or use our digital content or services, or if we stop offering a service all together, we’ll provide you with reasonable advance notice by email – including a description of the changes, when they’ll take place and your right to end your contract with us if our modifications create more than a minor negative impact – except in urgent situations such as preventing abuse or harm, responding to legal requirements or addressing security and operability issues. We’ll also provide you with an opportunity to export your content from your Google Account using Google Takeout, subject to applicable law and policies.

What we expect from you

Follow these terms and service-specific additional terms

The permission that we give you to access and use our services continues as long as you comply with:

You can view, copy and store these terms in PDF format. You can accept these terms and any service-specific additional terms when you’re signed in to your Google Account.

We also make various policies, help centres and other resources available to you to answer common questions and to set expectations about using our services. These resources include our Privacy Policy, Copyright Help Centre, Safety Centre, Transparency Centre, and other pages accessible from our policies site. Finally, we may provide specific instructions and warnings within our services – such as dialogue boxes that alert you to important information.

Although we give you permission to use our services, we retain any intellectual property rights that we have in the services.

Respect others

We want to maintain a respectful environment for everyone, which means that you must follow these basic rules of conduct:
  • comply with applicable laws, including export control, sanctions and human trafficking laws
  • respect the rights of others, including privacy and intellectual property rights
  • don't abuse or harm others or yourself (or threaten or encourage such abuse or harm) – for example, by misleading, defrauding, illegally impersonating, defaming, bullying, harassing or stalking others

Our service-specific additional terms and policies, such as our Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy, provide additional details about appropriate conduct that everyone using those services must follow. If you find that others aren't following these rules, many of our services allow you to report abuse. If we act on a report of abuse, we also provide the process described in the Taking action in case of problems section.

Don't abuse our services

Most people who access or use our services understand the general rules that keep the Internet safe and open. Unfortunately, a small number of people don't respect those rules, so we're describing them here to protect our services and users from abuse. In that spirit:

You must not abuse, harm, interfere with or disrupt our services or systems – for example, by:
  • introducing malware
  • spamming, hacking or bypassing our systems or protective measures
  • jailbreaking, adversarial prompting or prompt injection, except as part of our safety and bug testing programs
  • accessing or using our services or content in fraudulent or deceptive ways, such as:
    • phishing
    • creating fake accounts or content, including fake reviews
    • misleading others into thinking that generative AI content was created by a human
    • providing services that appear to originate from you (or someone else) when they actually originate from us
  • providing services that appear to originate from us when they do not
  • using our services (including the content that they provide) to violate anyone's legal rights, such as intellectual property or privacy rights
  • reverse engineering our services or underlying technology, such as our machine learning models, to extract trade secrets or other proprietary information, except as allowed by applicable law
  • using automated means to access content from any of our services in violation of the machine-readable instructions on our web pages (for example, robots.txt files that disallow crawling, training or other activities)
  • using AI-generated content from our services to develop machine learning models or related AI technology
  • hiding or misrepresenting who you are in order to violate these terms
  • providing services that encourage others to violate these terms

Permission to use your content

Some of our services are designed to let you upload, submit, store, send, receive or share your content. You have no obligation to provide any content to our services and you’re free to choose the content that you want to provide. If you choose to upload or share content, please make sure that you have the necessary rights to do so and that the content is lawful.

Licence

Your content remains yours, which means that you retain any intellectual property rights that you have in your content. For example, you have intellectual property rights in the creative content that you make, such as reviews that you write. Or you may have the right to share someone else’s creative content if they’ve given you their permission.

We need your permission if your intellectual property rights restrict our use of your content. You provide Google with that permission through this licence.

What's covered

This licence covers your content if that content is protected by intellectual property rights.

What’s not covered

  • This licence doesn’t affect your data protection rights – it’s only about your intellectual property rights
  • This licence doesn’t cover these types of content:
    • publicly available, factual information that you provide, such as corrections to the address of a local business. That information doesn’t require a licence because it’s considered common knowledge that everyone’s free to use.
    • feedback that you offer, such as suggestions to improve our services. Feedback is covered in the Service-related communications section below.

Scope

This licence is:
  • worldwide, which means that it’s valid anywhere in the world
  • non-exclusive, which means that you can licence your content to others
  • royalty-free, which means that there are no monetary fees for this licence

Rights

This licence allows Google to do the following things, only for the limited purposes described in the Purpose section below:

  • use your content for technical purposes only – for example, to save your content on our systems and make it accessible from anywhere that you go, or to reformat your content for compatibility with our services
  • make your content publicly available if and only to the extent that you’ve made it visible to others
  • sublicense these rights to:
    • other users to allow the services to work as designed, such as enabling you to share photos with people that you choose
    • our contractors who’ve signed agreements with us that are consistent with these terms, only for the limited purposes described in the Purpose section below

Purpose

This licence is for the limited purpose of operating the services, which means allowing the services to work as designed and creating new features and functionalities. This includes using automated systems and algorithms to analyse your content:

  • for spam, malware and illegal content
  • to recognise patterns in data, such as determining when to suggest a new album in Google Photos to keep related photos together
  • to customise our services for you, such as providing recommendations and personalised search results, content and ads (which you can change or turn off in Ad Settings)

This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received and when it is stored.

Duration

This licence lasts for as long as your content is protected by intellectual property rights, unless you remove your content from our services earlier.

If you remove from our services any content that’s covered by this licence, our systems will stop making that content publicly available in a reasonable amount of time. There are two exceptions:

  • If you already shared your content with others before removing it. For example, if you shared a photo with a friend who then made a copy of it, or shared it again, then that photo may continue to appear in your friend’s Google Account even after you remove it from your Google Account.
  • If you make your content available through other companies' services, it’s possible that search engines, including Google Search, will continue to find and display your content as part of their search results.

Using Google services

Your Google Account

If you meet these age requirements, you can create a Google Account for your convenience. Some services require that you have a Google Account in order to work – for example, to use Gmail, you need a Google Account so that you have a place to send and receive your email.

You’re responsible for what you do with your Google Account, including taking reasonable steps to keep your Google Account secure, and we encourage you to regularly use the Security Check-Up.

Using Google services on behalf of an organisation or business

Many organisations, such as businesses, non-profits and schools, take advantage of our services. To use our services on behalf of an organisation:
  • an authorised representative of that organisation must agree to these terms
  • your organisation’s administrator may assign a Google Account to you. That administrator might require you to follow additional rules and may be able to access or disable your Google Account.
If you’re based in the European Union, these terms don’t affect the rights that you may have as a business user of online intermediation services – including online platforms such as Google Play – under the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation.

Service-related communications

To provide you with our services, we sometimes send you service announcements and other service-related information. To learn more about how we communicate with you, see Google’s Privacy Policy.

If you choose to give us feedback, such as suggestions to improve our services, we may act on your feedback without obligation to you.

Content in Google services

Your content

Some of our services allow you to generate original content. Google won't claim ownership over that content.

Some of our services give you the opportunity to make your content publicly available – for example, you might post a product or restaurant review that you wrote, or you might upload a blog post that you created.

If you think that someone is infringing your intellectual property rights, you can send us notice of the infringement and we’ll take appropriate action. For example, we suspend or close the Google Accounts of repeat copyright infringers as described in our Copyright Help Centre.

Google content

Some of our services include content that belongs to Google – for example, many of the visual illustrations that 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.

Other content

Finally, some of our services give you access to content that belongs to other people or organisations – for example, a store owner’s description of their own business, or a newspaper article displayed in Google News. You may not use this content without that person or organisation’s permission, or as otherwise allowed by law. The views expressed in the content of other people or organisations are their own, and don’t necessarily reflect Google’s views.

Software in Google services

Some of our services include downloadable or preloaded software. We give you permission to use that software as part of the services.

The licence that we give you is:
  • worldwide, which means that it’s valid anywhere in the world
  • non-exclusive, which means that we can licence the software to others
  • royalty-free, which means that there are no monetary fees for this licence
  • personal, which means that it doesn’t extend to anyone else
  • non-assignable, which means that you’re not allowed to assign the licence to anyone else

Some of our services include software that’s offered under open-source licence terms that we make available to you. Sometimes there are provisions in the open-source licence that explicitly override parts of these terms, so please make sure that you read those licences.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell or lease any part of our services or software.

In case of problems or disagreements

Both the law and these terms give you the right to (1) a certain quality of service and (2) ways to fix problems if things go wrong. If you’re a consumer, then you enjoy all legal rights granted to consumers under applicable law, as well as any additional rights provided under these terms or service-specific additional terms.

Legal guarantee

If you’re an EEA-based consumer and you’ve agreed to our Terms of Service, then EEA consumer laws provide you with a legal guarantee covering the digital content, services or goods that we provide you. Under this guarantee, we’re liable for any lack of conformity that you discover:

  • within two years of the delivery of goods (such as a phone) or the one-time supply of digital content or services (such as purchasing a movie)
  • at any time during the 'continuous' supply of digital content or services (such as Maps or Gmail)

Your national laws may provide an even longer guarantee. Your rights under these legal guarantees aren’t limited by any other commercial guarantees that we provide. If you want to make a guarantee claim, please contact us.

Liabilities

For all users

These terms don't limit liability for:

  • fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation
  • death or personal injury caused by negligence
  • gross negligence
  • willful misconduct
In addition, these terms don't limit your rights under product liability law.

For property damage or financial loss caused by Google, its representatives or its agents due to slight negligence, Google is only liable for breaches of essential contractual obligations that result in typical damage foreseeable at the conclusion of the contract. An essential contractual obligation is an obligation that must be complied with as a prerequisite for the performance of the contract, and that the parties may trust will be fulfilled. This does not change the burden of proof to your detriment.

For business users and organisations only

If you’re a business user or organisation:

  • To the extent allowed by applicable law, you'll indemnify Google and its directors, officers, employees and contractors for any third-party legal proceedings (including actions by government authorities) arising out of, or relating to, your unlawful use of the services or violation of these terms or service-specific additional terms. This indemnity covers any liability or expense arising from claims, losses, damages, judgments, fines, litigation costs and legal fees, except to the extent a liability or expense is caused by Google's breach, negligence or willful misconduct.
  • If you’re legally exempt from certain responsibilities, including indemnification, then those responsibilities don’t apply to you under these terms. For example, the United Nations enjoys certain immunities from legal obligations and these terms don’t override those immunities.

Taking action in case of problems

Before taking action as described below, we'll provide you with advance notice when reasonably possible, describe the reason for our action and give you an opportunity to clarify the issue and address it, unless there are objective and concrete reasons to believe that doing so would:

  • cause harm or liability to a user, third party or Google
  • violate the law or a legal enforcement authority’s order
  • compromise an investigation
  • compromise the operation, integrity or security of our services

Removing your content

If there are objective and concrete reasons to believe that any of your content (1) breaches these terms, service-specific additional terms or policies, (2) violates applicable law, or (3) could harm our users, third parties or Google, then we reserve the right to take down some or all of that content in accordance with applicable law. Examples include child pornography, content that facilitates human trafficking or harassment, terrorist content and content that infringes someone else’s intellectual property rights.

Suspending or terminating your access to Google services

Without limiting any of our other rights, Google may suspend or terminate your access to the services or delete your Google Account if any of these things happen:

  • you materially or repeatedly breach these terms, service-specific additional terms or policies
  • we’re required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order
  • there are objective and concrete reasons to believe that your conduct causes harm or liability to a user, third party or Google – for example, by hacking, phishing, harassing, spamming, misleading others or scraping content that doesn’t belong to you

For more information about why we disable accounts and what happens when we do, see this Help Centre page. If you believe that your Google Account has been suspended or terminated in error, you can appeal.

Of course, you’re always free to stop using our services at any time. If you’re an EEA-based consumer, you can also withdraw from these terms within 14 days of accepting them. If you do stop using a service, we’d appreciate knowing why so that we can continue improving our services.

Handling requests for your data

Respect for the privacy and security of your data underpins our approach to responding to data disclosure requests. When we receive data disclosure requests, our team reviews them to make sure that they satisfy legal requirements and Google's data disclosure policies. Google Ireland Limited accesses and discloses data, including communications, in accordance with the laws of Ireland and EU law applicable in Ireland. For more information about the data disclosure requests that Google receives worldwide, and how we respond to such requests, see our Transparency Report and Privacy Policy.

Settling disputes, governing law and courts

For information about how to contact Google, please visit our contact page.

If you’re a resident of, or an organisation based in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, these terms and your relationship with Google under these terms and service-specific additional terms, are governed by the laws of your country of residence, and you can file legal disputes in your local courts. If you’re an EEA-based consumer, please contact us to resolve issues directly. The European Commission also offers an Online Dispute Resolution platform, but Google isn’t legally required to use this or other alternative dispute resolution platforms.

About these terms

By law, you have certain rights that can’t be limited by a contract like these Terms of Service. These terms are in no way intended to restrict those rights.

We want to make these terms easy to understand, so we’ve used examples from our services. But not all the services mentioned may be available in your country.

We may update these terms and service-specific additional terms (1) to reflect changes in our services or how we do business – for example, when we add new services, features, technologies, pricing or benefits (or remove old ones), (2) for legal, regulatory or security reasons or (3) to prevent abuse or harm.

If we change these terms or service-specific additional terms, we'll provide you with at least 15 days' advance notice before the changes take effect. When we notify you of changes, we'll provide you with the new version of the terms and point out the material changes. If you don't object before the changes take effect, you'll be deemed to have accepted the changed terms. Our notice will explain this objection process. You can refuse to accept the changes, in which case the changes won't apply to you, but we reserve the right to end our relationship with you if all other termination requirements are met. You can also end your relationship with us at any time by closing your Google Account.

EEA instructions on withdrawal

If you're an EEA-based consumer, then EEA consumer law gives you the right to withdraw from this contract as described in the EU's Model Instructions on Withdrawal, provided below.

Right of withdrawal

You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.

The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract.

To exercise the right of withdrawal, you must inform us of your decision to withdraw from this contract by an unequivocal statement (e.g. a letter sent by post or email). You can contact us by email at account-withdrawal@google.com; by phone +353 1 533 9837 (see below for country-specific telephone numbers); or by writing to us at Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. You may use the attached model withdrawal form, but it is not obligatory. You can also electronically fill in and submit the model withdrawal form or any other unequivocal statement on our website (g.co/EEAWithdrawalForm). If you use this option, we will send you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by email) without delay.

To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.

Effects of withdrawal

If you withdraw from this contract, we shall reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (with the exception of the supplementary costs resulting from your choice of a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us), without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract. We will carry out such reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.

Model withdrawal form

(complete and return this form only if you wish to withdraw from the contract)

− To Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, account-withdrawal@google.com:

− I hereby give notice that I withdraw from my contract of sale for the provision of the following service, _____________

— Ordered on, _____________

— Name of consumer, _____________

— Address of consumer, _____________

— Signature of consumer (only if this form is notified on paper), _____________

− Date _____________

Contact Google to withdraw from these terms

CountryPhone number
Austria0800 001180
Åland Islands0800 526683
Belgium0800 58 142
Bulgaria0800 14 744
Canary Islands+34 912 15 86 27
Ceuta & Melilla+34 912 15 86 27
Croatia0800 787 086
Cyprus80 092492
Czechia800 720 070
Denmark80 40 01 11
Estonia8002 643
Finland0800 520030
France0 805 98 03 38
French Guiana0805 98 03 38
French Polynesia+33 1 85 14 96 65
French Southern Territories+33 1 85 14 96 65
Germany0800 6270502
Greece21 1180 9433
Guadeloupe0805 98 03 38
Hungary06 80 200 148
Iceland800 4177
Ireland1800 832 663
Italy800 598 905
Latvia80 205 391
Liechtenstein0800 566 814
Lithuania0 800 00 163
Luxembourg800 40 005
Malta8006 2257
Martinique0805 98 03 38
Mayotte+33 1 85 14 96 65
Netherlands0800 3600010
New Caledonia+33 1 85 14 96 65
Norway800 62 068
Poland800 410 575
Portugal808 203 430
Réunion0805 98 03 38
Romania0800 672 350
Slovakia0800 500 932
Slovenia080 688882
Spain900 906 451
St Barthélemy+33 1 85 14 96 65
St Martin+33 1 85 14 96 65
St Pierre & Miquelon+33 1 85 14 96 65
Svalbard & Jan Mayen800 62 425
Sweden020-012 52 41
Vatican City800 599 102
Wallis & Futuna+33 1 85 14 96 65

Definitions

affiliate

An entity that belongs to the Google group of companies, which means Google LLC and its subsidiaries, including the following companies that provide consumer services in the EU: Google Ireland Limited, Google Commerce Limited and Google Dialer Inc.

business user

An individual or entity who is not a consumer (see consumer).

commercial guarantee

A commercial guarantee is a voluntary commitment that is in addition to the legal guarantee of conformity. The company offering the commercial guarantee agrees to (a) provide certain services; or (b) repair, replace or refund the consumer for defective items.

consumer

An individual who uses Google services for personal, non-commercial purposes outside of their trade, business, craft or profession. This includes 'consumers' as defined in Article 2.1 of the EU consumer rights directive. (See business user)

A legal right that allows the creator of an original work (such as a blog post, photo or video) to decide if and how that original work may be used by others, subject to certain limitations and exceptions.

country version

If you have a Google Account, we associate your account with a country (or territory) so that we can determine:

  • the Google affiliate that provides the services to you and that processes your information as you use the services
  • the version of the terms that govern our relationship

When you’ve signed out, your country version is determined by the location where you’re using Google services. If you have an account, you can sign in and view these terms to see the country associated with it.

disclaimer

A statement that limits someone’s legal responsibilities.

EU Platform-to-Business Regulation

The Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services.

indemnify or indemnity

An individual or organisation’s contractual obligation to compensate the losses suffered by another individual or organisation from legal proceedings such as lawsuits.

intellectual property rights (IP rights)

Rights over the creations of a person’s mind, such as inventions (patent rights); literary and artistic works (copyright); designs (design rights), and symbols, names and images used in commerce (trademarks). IP rights may belong to you, another individual or an organisation.

lack of conformity

A legal concept that defines the difference between how something should work and how it actually works. Under the law, how something should work is based on how the seller or trader describes it, whether its quality and performance are satisfactory and its fitness for the usual purpose of such items.

A legal guarantee is a requirement under the law that a seller or trader is liable if their digital content, services or goods are defective (that is, that they lack conformity).

organisation

A legal entity (such as a corporation, non-profit or school) and not an individual person.

services

The Google services that are subject to these terms are the products and services listed at https://policies.google.com/terms/service-specific, including:

  • apps and sites (like Search and Maps)
  • platforms (like Google Shopping)
  • integrated services (such as Maps embedded in other companies' apps or sites)
  • devices and other goods (like Google Nest)

Many of these services also include content that you can stream or interact with.

trademark

Symbols, names and images used in commerce that are capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one individual or organisation from those of another.

your content

Things that you create, upload, submit, store, send, receive or share using our services, such as:

  • Docs, Sheets and Slides that you create
  • blog posts that you upload through Blogger
  • reviews that you submit via Maps
  • videos that you store in Drive
  • emails that you send and receive through Gmail
  • pictures that you share with friends via Photos
  • travel itineraries that you share with Google
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