Cloud file storage and syncing service Dropbox is arguably one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley. It recently hit two big milestones: 25m users, and 200m files saved each day, and appears to have a very bright future.

But it also has a bit of explaining to do following a change to its Terms of Service.

The change: a clause indicating that Dropbox will "[cooperate] with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process, which may require Dropbox to provide the contents of your private Dropbox".

As part of this, the company "will remove Dropbox's encryption from the files before providing them to law enforcement." Standard fare legal terms typical for such a service, right?

Yes, but there's just one problem: Dropbox isn't supposed to be able to do this. As noted by software developer Miguel de Icaza, who started the GNOME project, Dropbox has previously created the impression that it can't access user files even if it wants to.

Full story:

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7442-why-misleading-your-customers-is-a-bad-strategy