This morning, while I was deactivating, I noticed how many good stock images had no downloads at all.  I already knew that of course, but I noticed it again. 
I'm sure we all have files like that.  They are good stock material, but just had bad luck :  accepted during the weekend, or just not sold the first week and then they disappear into the black depths of Best Match.
Some of these files even have bad luck on all agencies (one of my favorite vintage photos has never EVER sold  ).
Now suppose Istock/Getty had told us - in August - about the Getty/Google deal.  Suppose they had asked 1 image per contributor, and we would be paid 12$ + no stripping of metadata.  Would you have submitted a good file, one of the non-sellers, but still good stock?  I would (I think).
The difference is huge of course :  no deceiving, no bestsellers, no stripping of metadata, and the choice would've been ours, not the Google-drive-users.  And only 1 file per contributor "opted in".
 

I don't think Google would be tempted to deal with 12000 contributors directly, just to save $10 per image.  Would be nice of course, but not really practical.

Of course there is the possibility that Google just buys Getty, it is not unusual for Internet companies to acquire content this way.  They can then just say "new owners, new rules" . . . . . . . .

Yes, anything is possible with giants like Google.  The idea alone is pure horror.

Not me.  Getty already takes 84% of what a customer pays.  No chance I'm going to do anything that benefits them far more than it does me.

I am sure i would have donated several useful images for a project if someone I trust had explained to me that this would be important for the business.

You have the advantage, as you know who is was trustworthy there.
I know no admins, so trust none; though I'm sure several individuals are trustworthy in themselves. I have no idea who just goes along with the puppeteers and would parrot the party line.
I also would want it clearly explained not just 'that' it would be important for the business, but exactly why and how it would benefit 'the business' and hopefully me as a tiny part of 'the business'.

As it was announced as a deal with Thinkstock in Google's August blog post, I would have thought the images were coming from Thinkstock as well.

With any of my images on Thinkstock (one or more) I wouldn't have had a problem with the deal. Compared to what I get for a Thinkstock download, the $12 would have made up for 30-40 downloads which most images don't reach on Thinkstock.

Obviously I'm also judging the issues of this deal less critical than others, I just don't think their way of image selection was well done, especially with regards to iStock content.

Now suppose Istock/Getty had told us - in August - about the Getty/Google deal.  Suppose they had asked 1 image per contributor, and we would be paid 12$ + no stripping of metadata.  Would you have submitted a good file, one of the non-sellers, but still good stock?  I would (I think).
The difference is huge of course :  no deceiving, no bestsellers, no stripping of metadata, and the choice would've been ours, not the Google-drive-users.  And only 1 file per contributor "opted in".

I'd have probably been willing to submit a decent zero seller to the deal, assuming that the image was credited to me so anyone who liked it or wanted to see similar could download it at Istock or elsewhere. 

I have a few in the Microsoft deal through Fotolia, and was willing to agree to it because I was ASKED, it was just a couple of images, and I was given approval over which ones. Not to mention that the images in MS Word linked to the same image on Fotolia so they could download a larger size or see what else I had to offer if they wanted. 

I would have passed.

I'm not trying to change your mind, but I think free downloads are done by a different kind of customers.  A while ago I clicked "free" instead of "delete" on a Dreamstime message about a file that had not been selling for 2 years.  After that, it was downloaded thousands of times.  No hard feelings with Dreamstime of course, because it was ME who decided to click on "free" and I could CHOOSE which file!

Michael when a company licenses files for their team, it is a simple multi user license, it doesn�t mean that everyone in the team will use it immediately, but the files are available for them to use. It is the same with google. Maybe not all of the 425 million will chose my file for their first document, but they have the right to do so.

The 9 million accounts on istock don�t have the right to use my files. They need to buy a license first.

Michael when a company licenses files for their team, it is a simple multi user license, it doesn�t mean that everyone in the team will use it immediately, but the files are available for them to use. It is the same with google. Maybe not all of the 425 million will chose my file for their first document, but they have the right to do so.

That's correct. Though the appropriate license would not be the Multi-Seat but the Electronic Items license. Go dig it up and read, anyone could buy this license for any of your files and do almost exactly what Google does. It's not a big stretch. Then there is only the price but we have seen steep discounts in the past and if someone wants to buy 1 million credits. You wouldn't be scared if I would do that because I don't have 425 million potential users? Yeah, maybe but legally it's totally the same for me to come up with an iPad app and include your images in the templates.

So the most problematic thing is the image selection - as Dave said, the iStock images involved are the premium content, higher priced collections. Most of the imagery at Google Drive is wholly owned content from back then, or "bottom feeders" as someone else called them recently.