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eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

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Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#131

Post by kccqzy »

dudus wrote: post #126
Galanwe wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then we have what Google is offering: > From the screenshots, I think it is only a fake wet signature. I'm not sure how valid that is Welcome to 2023! I've bought a house, incorporated a company, signed a work contract and contracted a lawyer just based on Adobe mobile wet signatures on PDFs.

2023? All my signatures at least in the last decade were fake wet signatures. All leasing docs, employment docs, and banks... I use the Preview App that comes standard on OSX. You scan a signature on a piece of paper with your webcam. Then you can just "paste it" anywhere, I even give it a dark blue shade. I had a single person give me shit and say they needed "ink on paper" insisting me to print/sign/scan. I just ra…

> I just ran the PDF file through a website that makes it look like it was scanned with some imperfections and tilt.

I don't trust any websites for that. Instead I display the document on the laptop monitor where the page has a white background but everything beyond the page is black. Then I use my phone's builtin scanner to "scan" my laptop screen.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#132

Post by jsnell »

wanderingmind wrote: post #113
tadfisher wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like DocuSign does any sort of identity verification. I signed up for a free account and they validated my email address, that's it. That would be the only identifier associated with my signature, so Google actually has more information than them.

Doesnt matter. Ultimately Docusign will show up in court to defend their product and the contract. Google can't even bother to provide an automated response

Do you have any particular cases in mind where Docusign mounted a spirited defense in court despite not being one of the parties? How did those cases turn out?

At least their terms of service don't suggest any kind of general legal indemnification of customers, only a limited one around loss of confidentiality caused by security breaches in their systems.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#133

Post by jupp0r »

crazygringo wrote: post #85
danielrhodes wrote: post #23

First this is a great idea. Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I haven't used the feature, but from reading the blog post it is sad to see how poorly Google executes on products, even at the beta stage. Some context: I've built such a product before and eSigs are more simple than they seem as long as you do a few things. 1) You need to verify somebody's identity. Sending them an email with t…

> Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I just find these comments to be so strange. You can look at all of the articles in that blog to see all of the feature improvements that have launched in Docs over the past 2 years. It's a lot of stuff. Maybe they're not features that matter to you, some are available only to paid customers as opposed to free tier, or maybe you just haven't bothered to e…

I looked through these posts for the last three years and there are less than five features that actually pertain Google Docs.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#134

Post by b112 »

angry_octet wrote: post #105
b112 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a signature, just that he accepted the deal. And note that he had accepted deals the same way before. Accepting the terms, just as a handshake, on a deal, can bind one.

It’s more than a handshake deal — they are making their mark on a contract. This stems from the time before wide literacy and the ability to write, where people would make an X mark on the paper. Sometimes neither party could not read the actual contract, which was written by scribes. So the emoji is a mark. https://www.swanngalleries.com/news/autographs/2023/01/the-s...

That was not the court decision. The newspapers are giving snippets of the judge's decision, out of context.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/farmer-ordered-to-pay-a...

The nuance here us that:

- the emoji was bring used to reply with an OK

- this was used in the past on other contracts between the two

Note that judge looked into the meaning of the emoji, looked into how it was interpreted before, and said "but nevertheless under these circumstances this was a valid way to convey the two purposes of a ‘signature,”‘ Keene wrote in his decision."

Note purposes of a signature, not signature. FYI, making a mark is still legal, judges know it, yet that language was not used.

And you don't look into how a emoji was used by other people, if it is being used as a uniquoe "mark" aka "signature" aka "trade mark".

Because a mark, a signature is unique. An emoji is as un-unique as a word such as YES.

This is also why someone cannot trademark a colour, or a generic font. Trademarks aka marks aka signatures mist be unique.

In this case, the decision was "he accepted the deal", just as a handshake or verbal OK.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#135

Post by rcme »

crazygringo wrote: post #85
danielrhodes wrote: post #23

First this is a great idea. Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I haven't used the feature, but from reading the blog post it is sad to see how poorly Google executes on products, even at the beta stage. Some context: I've built such a product before and eSigs are more simple than they seem as long as you do a few things. 1) You need to verify somebody's identity. Sending them an email with t…

> Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I just find these comments to be so strange. You can look at all of the articles in that blog to see all of the feature improvements that have launched in Docs over the past 2 years. It's a lot of stuff. Maybe they're not features that matter to you, some are available only to paid customers as opposed to free tier, or maybe you just haven't bothered to e…

I don't know. From what I've seen, a lot software gets built by a small group of people. It becomes wildly popular and the is maintained by a behemoth churning out minor features at a snails pace while everyone frets about the even the smallest product changes.

It's easy to experiment and build when your product is small and few people use it. When you're bringing in real money and most of the Fortune 500 is using your software, it's a lot harder to add anything meaningful for fear of rocking the boat. And note, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the business is doing well, there might not really be a need for many new features.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#136

Post by andsoitis »

danielrhodes wrote: post #23

First this is a great idea. Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I haven't used the feature, but from reading the blog post it is sad to see how poorly Google executes on products, even at the beta stage. Some context: I've built such a product before and eSigs are more simple than they seem as long as you do a few things. 1) You need to verify somebody's identity. Sending them an email with t…

> Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better.

Google Docs have been improving a LOT over the last year or so.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#137

Post by gumby »

amf12 wrote: post #109
gumby wrote: post #72

My ID card has a chip in it and can be used to sign documents. Why not support that?

Because their biggest markets do not? And it's a just announced, beta feature!

Hmm, I just looked and it turns out not to be a requirement of all EU ID cards.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#139

Post by jppittma »

rcme wrote: post #135
crazygringo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally there is some movement on making Google Docs better. I just find these comments to be so strange. You can look at all of the articles in that blog to see all of the feature improvements that have launched in Docs over the past 2 years. It's a lot of stuff. Maybe they're not features that matter to you, some are available only to paid customers as opposed to free tier, or maybe you just haven't bothered to e…

I don't know. From what I've seen, a lot software gets built by a small group of people. It becomes wildly popular and the is maintained by a behemoth churning out minor features at a snails pace while everyone frets about the even the smallest product changes. It's easy to experiment and build when your product is small and few people use it. When you're bringing in real money and most of the Fortune 500 is using yo…

Well, yeah, because the risk/reward of the decision making changes, purely in terms of dollars/second for an outage, never-mind legal and reputation risk.

Re: eSignature Beta for Google Docs and Google Drive

#140

Post by sethhochberg »

ew wrote: post #64

We attempted to create this last year with https://pleasesign.me . Definitely a case of waiting too long on a good idea. Ah well, it still has some features Google might not launch :)

Many, many, many years ago I operated pleaselocate.me when mapping SKDs and geoip were first becoming available to any kid with a website - it brought me some joy to see people are still using this style of domain
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