14 DAY TRIAL // Zoolz is a cloud storage and backup service that recently took a controversial step by terminating the account of a customer for storing “infringing” content on the site. The only issue with this is that the user didn’t store any actual movies, but just the .torrent files that work with a client.
TorrentFreak reports that Ryan Gallagher, one of the service’s users, had his account terminated after storing several .torrent files on his hard drive backups.
As many other similar services out there, Zoolz boasts that all data transfers are completely private and secure. If that’s actually the case, the question remains as to how the company knew about the type of files being stored by that particular user.
Of course, this particular bit is explained in the product agreement, where the company states that Zoolz commonly scans for pirated filenames, much like Google scans for hashes of child abuse footage.
“If Metadata checking (i.e. file names) reveals that an account has content relating to video piracy, software piracy or any copyrighted data with the intent to distribute (i.e. torrents) the account will be immediately terminated,” Zoolz’s product agreement terms read.
While all this is completely understandable, the bigger issue still remains – the man had only backed up a few .torrent files, which may show intention to download infringing content, but not the actual content.
“My account and all data (1.3TB) was nuked, they would not budge on deleting specific ‘prohibited file names’ saying they had no way to do it. It’s a complete waste of time and bandwidth,” Gallagher told the publication.
The former Zoolz customer was given a few days to transfer his data to a safer place after he was informed about the account termination.
Gallagher received some support from Backup Review’s Geoff Akerlund, who wrote about the issues last week. He mentioned that the customer in question had been notified of the existence of five .torrent files that took up less than 1MB.
After pointing out the ridiculousness of the situation, since the existence of the .torrent files does not necessarily mean the user also downloaded that particular content, Akerlund was accused of supporting “illegal behavior.” “The torrents could mean that the user has the actual media files, and downloading any media file without any proof of ownership is considered illegal,” reads an email from Zoolz.
The fact that the company uses the word “could” in the phrase above indicates that it has no proof that the individual has said files. Since Gallagher was not informed about backing up actual movies, it’s safe to say that the account termination happened on a hunch.