4 ms·

I've just skimmed over the TOS. It seems a bit atypical: > DigitalOcean reserves the right to modify the Terms of Service without notice. Well... that more or

by arxanas 13y ago

I've just skimmed over the TOS. It seems a bit atypical: > DigitalOcean reserves the right to modify the Terms of Service without notice. Well... that more or less invalidates the sanctity of the terms. > DigitalOcean also reserves the right to terminate a customers account if they are targeted by malicious activity from other parties. What is the justification for that? Simply being the target of malicious activity means that your account can be terminated? It's not as though one is responsible for malicious activity directed against them. > DIGITALOCEAN DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, REGARDING THE SERVICES PROVIDED HEREUNDER, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ... I see this a lot with software, but doesn't this mean that DigitalOcean has no actual obligation to provide the cloud or VPS services they advertise? I didn't see any such clause in the EC2 TOS, but I did not look very hard. Is this the usual sort of agreement for such a service?

cowsandmilk 13y ago
> I didn't see any such clause in the EC2 TOS See section 10 of http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/ http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/ Frankly, none of those terms seems atypical. Amazon does have SLAs[1], but they do not apply if your account has been suspended. Reasons for suspension can include your use of the service adversely affecting any other AWS customer. They may also terminate you if providing services creates a substantial technical burden. Both of those can be triggered by you being "targeted by malicious activity from other other parties". [1] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/
aroch 13y ago
>Well... that more or less invalidates the sanctity of the terms. You'll find the plurality (if not majority) of ToS's out there include such a statement. >What is the justification for that? Simply being the target of malicious activity means that your account can be terminated? It's not as though one is responsible for malicious activity directed against them. They don't want to deal with the networking implications of a large scale DDoS. They're providing low priced VPS services, not high bandwidth, high load custom racks. Also, they "reserve the right" not the "always exercise the right". DO likely won't kick you for a small DoS/DDoS but sustained attacks take much more manpower to deal with than you're paying them for. >I see this a lot with software, but doesn't this mean that DigitalOcean has no actual obligation to provide the cloud or VPS services they advertise? No, it means you can't sue DO because your VPS went down and you lost 10K is sales because customers couldn't access your storefront. It's an indemnity clause. >Is this the usual sort of agreement for such a service? Yes, unless you're paying a good deal of money for something like a Colo with 1hour SLA or an AWS instance with a high SLA.
eli 13y ago
Being the target of e.g. a DDOS attack can consume considerable resources and affect many other DigitalOcean customers. It may not seem "fair" to terminate your account over that, but having your site unavailable because of an attack on a neighboring customer is no fun either. IANAL, but I don't think that warranty disclaimer is relevant here. I don't think it means much at all actually. As a business you can say you're not liable for anything bad that happens, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.
georgemcbay 13y ago
I don't do a lot of comparison reading of the TOS on a lot of hosting providers, but this stuff doesn't seem as unusual to me as it does to you. Most providers will shut you off if you're running a server that attracts a lot of DDOS attempts. Many providers explicitly disallow running irc servers up front to avoid this very scenario. If your site is constantly getting DDOSed for whatever reason that is going to have a big impact on the hoster's entire network and other servers they are hosting and while it may be through no fault of your own, almost all hosters are going to bounce you if it is a recurring problem.

by arxanas 13y ago

cowsandmilk 13y ago

> I didn't see any such clause in the EC2 TOS See section 10 of http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/ http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/ Frankly, none of those terms seems atypical. Amazon does have SLAs[1], but they do not apply if your account has been suspended. Reasons for suspension can include your use of the service adversely affecting any other AWS customer. They may also terminate you if providing services creates a substantial technical burden. Both of those can be triggered by you being "targeted by malicious activity from other other parties". [1] http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/ http://aws.amazon.com/ec2-sla/

aroch 13y ago

>Well... that more or less invalidates the sanctity of the terms. You'll find the plurality (if not majority) of ToS's out there include such a statement. >What is the justification for that? Simply being the target of malicious activity means that your account can be terminated? It's not as though one is responsible for malicious activity directed against them. They don't want to deal with the networking implications of a large scale DDoS. They're providing low priced VPS services, not high bandwidth, high load custom racks. Also, they "reserve the right" not the "always exercise the right". DO likely won't kick you for a small DoS/DDoS but sustained attacks take much more manpower to deal with than you're paying them for. >I see this a lot with software, but doesn't this mean that DigitalOcean has no actual obligation to provide the cloud or VPS services they advertise? No, it means you can't sue DO because your VPS went down and you lost 10K is sales because customers couldn't access your storefront. It's an indemnity clause. >Is this the usual sort of agreement for such a service? Yes, unless you're paying a good deal of money for something like a Colo with 1hour SLA or an AWS instance with a high SLA.

eli 13y ago

Being the target of e.g. a DDOS attack can consume considerable resources and affect many other DigitalOcean customers. It may not seem "fair" to terminate your account over that, but having your site unavailable because of an attack on a neighboring customer is no fun either. IANAL, but I don't think that warranty disclaimer is relevant here. I don't think it means much at all actually. As a business you can say you're not liable for anything bad that happens, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.

georgemcbay 13y ago

I don't do a lot of comparison reading of the TOS on a lot of hosting providers, but this stuff doesn't seem as unusual to me as it does to you. Most providers will shut you off if you're running a server that attracts a lot of DDOS attempts. Many providers explicitly disallow running irc servers up front to avoid this very scenario. If your site is constantly getting DDOSed for whatever reason that is going to have a big impact on the hoster's entire network and other servers they are hosting and while it may be through no fault of your own, almost all hosters are going to bounce you if it is a recurring problem.