>They can surely look at it and maybe do stuff with them internally, but I am pretty sure that they can't use them commercially.
How would you ever know if they did? People who worked at Google have been accused, by Google, of stealing the entire self driving car program and taking it to a competitor.
It's also vastly different. Of course someone working at at google on a project has access to that project. It doesn't mean they have access to your stuff.
First of all, that's wrong (as another comment pointed out). Of course, the probability of them stealing your stuff is non-zero, but it's very rare. Even if you use all your own hard and software, people still can steal your stuff :-)
I can be hacked by malware which can leak secrets from air gapped, Faraday caged machines. Therefore, I should put my billion dollar idea on the public cloud and just trust Google.
Because you do not stay in business if you operate in such a manner. Plus it is not good from an employee standpoint in retaining. Most people prefer to conduct themselves in an ethical manner.
Hard to get employees to not steal from you if you are stealing from your customers.
How would you ever know if they did? People who worked at Google have been accused, by Google, of stealing the entire self driving car program and taking it to a competitor.