AWS Service Terms 42.10 | Hacker News Reader

AWS Service Terms 42.10

aws.amazon.com

52 pointsvbezhenar41 comments

I've generated and uploaded a git patch to gist.github.com so you could easier see the changes: https://gist.github.com/victorb/d51151a71bbc2cea8db27e115ab5...

I'm sure there is some service that offers this on the fly, but quick search didn't reveal anything of interest that you could use for free.

Thanks jcims for the link to the previous terms :)

One interesting addition:

> +50.9. Amazon has implemented a moratorium on use of Amazon Rekognition’s face comparison feature by police departments in connection with criminal investigations. This moratorium does not apply to use of Amazon Rekognition’s face comparison feature to help identify or locate missing persons. For more information, see our announcement on our Amazon Day One Blog.

wtf "You will provide information or other materials related to Your Content (including copies of any client-side applications) as reasonably requested by us to verify your compliance with the Agreement."

That is apparently not a new clause.

Honestly didn't pay much attention since I do not host my stuff on AWS and presumably this was vetted by legal of companies that do use AWS.

Sometimes companies will try to get you to accept blatantly one-sided “standard terms” and then drop the requirement if queried. One new client wanted us to accept full liability for any damages incurred by their upstream client due to any delays in our delivery. We just said “uh, no?!” and they said “oh okay never mind.”

Hopefully that "reasonably" in "reasonably requested" has some work to do. I don't think going on a fishing expedition is reasonable, on the other hand if they have evidence suggesting you are not in compliance with the agreement that is more likely to be reasonable.

Does "reasonably" have any legal meaning beyond sounding less evil?

Yes.

without the word, you must do it, or be found in breach of the agreement, even if the request was unreasonable.

With the word, you wouldn't be in breach if a court found the request unreasonable.

Wonder how big of a deterrent is it given AWS can terminate your service

"Reasonably requested" has a very different complexion to "requested".

Not an American lawyer, but on the face of it, it looks like an objective question (what a reasonable person would regard as reasonable, rather than what Amazon subjectively regards as reasonable). I could be wrong. It's ultimately up to a court.

"Reasonably Request means a request for information or actions that is reasonably made by the requesting party and that can reasonably be provided or performed by the furnishing party without significant effort or expense; provided, that in the event that the furnishing party believes that the requested information or actions cannot be provided or performed without significant effort or expense, the furnishing party and the requesting party shall confer in good faith to agree upon appropriate consideration for the furnishing party to provide such information or perform such actions."

I thought AWS is one of the most privacy respecting companies.

Elsewhere they say we don’t look at your data. Here they indicate, not only we look at your data to verify your compliance, but we may even ask client side applications not held on our data centers.

Weird, if you ask me!

> they say we don’t look at your data.

They legally can't say that. Any source?

Number one item in their privacy policy:

https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-privacy-faq/

Access: We do not access or use your content for any purpose without your agreement. We never use your content or derive information from it for marketing or advertising purposes.

Apart from that, in general in their communications they are clear that they don’t access customers data, unless ordered by law enforcement/court.

Admittedly, deciphering the language could be tricky.

We do not access or use your content for any purpose without your agreement.

Did you agree to the TOS?

Depends on the meaning of this sentence, as I alluded to.

I expect that this sentence reasonably means, if we want to access your content, first we will email you and obtain your permission in each case.

The AWS privacy policy that I linked (TOS?) is quite clear. Where does it say that AWS has unconditional access to customers data (in which case the rest of policy is redundant)?

It indicates the opposite, although as I said, there is room for arguments.

Then you are agreeing that they will not access or use your data without agreement. Where is the confusion lol.

> without your agreement

Does signing TOS means giving them agreement?

why else would it exist? :)

A 2019 article had examples of more EULA "Easter Eggs" and the AWS acceptable use exemption for a zombie apocalypse was mentioned:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-ridiculous-eula-clauses-agr...

To anybody out there that thinks AWS is a good company to rely on: just look at that version number.

And if you want an analogy for what being their customer will be like 5 years from now, you can compare the customer service experience of Amazon.com 5 years ago with their customer service today.

5 years ago: sorry your package arrived late, here's a free month of Amazon prime to make up for it.

Today: I don't really care if your package arrived late. Check again in a couple days, most of the time packages just magically show up a few days later than when we said they'd arrive.

Personal anecdote, had ordered fairly expensive headphones the other day, I wasn't home yet their tracking said "handed to resident". Customer support said that happens sometimes and the package will probably still arrive within the next 2 days. Yeah sure. Didn't happen, they sent me another pair. It's awful how much waste and theft there is in this system and I feel terrible to occasionally be a part of that.

There was a really interesting article on returns the other day and the massive waste in the online shopping space.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/free-re...

The number in the title is referencing a clause in the terms, not stating the version number of the terms.

Previous release according to previous release list at bottom of the page

https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/historical/2020-03-23/

Any significant changes?

You know you can host your own servers, right? Its actually a lot easier than using AWS, too.

In a lot of orgs, you are allowed to use AWS but only "IT" can host their own servers, and they are hard to deal with. This I also a major rarely spoken factor for the success of AWS.

Is it actually a lot easier? By what metric?

I'm assuming when you say "host your own servers" you mean actual hardware, right? So getting the hardware, setting it up, hooking it up, reliably, to power and the internet, physically securing it, maintaining hardware, that's "a lot easier" than using a couple EC2 instances across availability zones?

Yes. You can either learn and use a locked in, vender specific service, or you can learn and use the same tools they use.

LOL

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