diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
index fbbf9bb97..1e982c684 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
@@ -160,7 +160,7 @@ class GCSFeedStorage(BlockingFeedStorage):
         return cls(
             uri,
             crawler.settings['GCS_PROJECT_ID'],
-            crawler.settings['FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL']
+            crawler.settings['FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL'] or None
         )
 
     def _store_in_thread(self, file):
diff --git a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
index 50fcd1d0a..45257a61c 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/default_settings.py
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ FEED_EXPORTERS_BASE = {
 }
 FEED_EXPORT_INDENT = 0
 
-FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL = None
+FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL = ''
 
 FILES_STORE_S3_ACL = 'private'
 FILES_STORE_GCS_ACL = ''
diff --git a/tests/test_feedexport.py b/tests/test_feedexport.py
index 41df7d7af..69f144d07 100644
--- a/tests/test_feedexport.py
+++ b/tests/test_feedexport.py
@@ -206,6 +206,24 @@ class GCSFeedStorageTest(unittest.TestCase):
         assert storage.bucket_name == 'mybucket'
         assert storage.blob_name == 'export.csv'
 
+    @mock.patch('scrapy.conf.settings',
+                new={'GCS_PROJECT_ID': 'conf_id', 'FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL': '' }, create=True)
+    def test_parse_empty_acl(self):
+        try:
+            from google.cloud.storage import Client
+        except ImportError:
+            raise unittest.SkipTest("GCSFeedStorage requires google-cloud-storage")
+
+        settings = {'GCS_PROJECT_ID': '123', 'FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL': '' }
+        crawler = get_crawler(settings_dict=settings)
+        storage = GCSFeedStorage.from_crawler(crawler, 'gs://mybucket/export.csv')
+        assert storage.acl is None
+
+        settings = {'GCS_PROJECT_ID': '123', 'FEED_STORAGE_GCS_ACL': None }
+        crawler = get_crawler(settings_dict=settings)
+        storage = GCSFeedStorage.from_crawler(crawler, 'gs://mybucket/export.csv')
+        assert storage.acl is None
+
     @defer.inlineCallbacks
     def test_store(self):
         try: