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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Don't sign up for a Google service unless you get contract terms which say they can't terminate you at will and have penalties if they do.

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Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud (but IANAL)

https://cloud.google.com/terms/ has explicit language around termination, disagreements around billing, breaking the law, etc. Sections 4 and 9 are probably the most relevant. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but read the indemnification and so on. Unlike other services at Google, we have real, paid, 24x7 support. I understand the general concern, but I think it's misplaced in this case.

[Edit: whoops, missed your comment downthread. I'll circulate internally with legal]

Curious if any provider has given you similar contract terms?

Here are Codero's terms.[1] There's a procedure for dealing with breaches of the agreement, with 7 day and 30 day notices to cure. It's not one-sided, like Google's: "Google may terminate this Agreement for its convenience at any time without liability to Customer."[2] Do you want to bet your business on that?

[1] http://codero.cachefly.net/docs/legal/TOS.pdf [2] https://cloud.google.com/terms/

I bet if you have CP you don't wait 30days ...

This is great. Thank you.

Codero, although they now offer cloud services, started as a raw rackmount PC service, which is what I use them for. That business is generally run as equipment leasing - you lease for a term, and can renew. Those businesses generally have reasonable terms of service, because they're almost entirely business to business and the other side has lawyers.

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