Thread by @QuinnyPig

Raise your hand if you've ever read the @awscloud services agreement. Strap in, there's some fascinating stuff ahead. It's time for another Twitter thread!

Section 5 talks about Alexa Web Services-- which is Alexa.com. It's almost certainly not what you think it is.

Can you imagine working on that team and having to explain it to other people?

If you have data in SimpleDB that hasn't been used in six months / is in the free tier, Amazon can delete it with 30 days notice.

"15.1. You may only use AWS MFA in connection with accessing your AWS account."

Uhm... as opposed to using it for what, exactly? I can't imagine how that would even look.

Oh ho ho the Oracle License stuff. There's a lot of crap in here that's very clearly not AWS's idea.

You may not publish any benchmarks of Oracle databases.

That's typical for Oracle clauses since the 90s. That's why I laugh whenever @FakeOracleLarry makes claims about how performant Oracle is. Put up or shut up.

"You may not use the Oracle Software for rental, timesharing, subscription services, hosting, or outsourcing;"

I'm not making this up.

Someone reading this just dropped a cup of coffee on the floor.

MSSQL RDS: "Microsoft is not responsible for providing any support in connection with the Services. Do not contact Microsoft for support."

Reasonable given what the service is, but you know some Microsoft attorney forced that phrasing into the terms.

Route53: "You will not create a hosted zone for a domain that you do not own or have authority over." Does someone want to do a real quick audit of their Route53 private zones?

"We may disconnect your AWS Direct Connect connection at any time for any reason." Not for breach. Not for convenience. "For any reason without notice."

That's not reassuring.

Imagine the scale and cost of f*cking this one up:

GovCloud: "AWS Services may not be used to process or store classified data. If you or your end users introduce classified data into the AWS Network, you will be responsible for all sanitization costs incurred by AWS."

"We may delete, upon 30 days’ notice to you and without liability of any kind, any of Your Content uploaded to AWS Lambda if it has not been run for more than three (3) months."

AWS Lambdas: Use Them or Lose Them

"Amazon ML: 44.3. We may delete, without liability of any kind, any Amazon ML object that remains inactive for more than the number of days specified in the user documentation."

"How many days is that?"
"I dunno, our docs suck. Make it Engineering's problem."

"You may use the Amazon API Gateway to publish, maintain, monitor, and secure Your Content at any scale..."

and then

"You agree not to use Amazon API Gateway for load testing."

"Neither you nor any End User may use the AWS Database Migration Service to migrate data, directly or indirectly, from a source that is not a DMS Supported Service to a destination that is also not a DMS Supported Service."

If you're "MySQL compatible", you can't use DMS.

"AWS Database Migration Service and the AWS Schema Conversion Tool collect non-personally identifiable metrics regarding your use of the Service Offerings,"

This is notable just because it's the first time I've seen this referenced in their terms for a service.

"(xii) You will not use a Certificate to breach the confidence of a third party or to send or receive unsolicited bulk correspondence; and"

Did... Amazon Legal just tell me it's a violation of their terms for me to *receive* spam?

In addition to your rights to distribute LM Forks on the Lumberyard Git Repository set out above, when discussing Lumberyard Materials in our forums or elsewhere, you may include up to 50 lines of source code"

I want them enforcing that on GitHub PRs.

We already talked about the Lumberyard Zombie Clause a few days ago.

"Amazon QuickSight may use Your Content to make personalized recommendations to you, such as suggested visualizations based on your query history."

Well that explains why it's showing my BI analyst pictures of beer.

` “AWS Professional Services” are advisory services`

You know the lawyer drafting this fantasized about contracting the quotation marks to just surround the word "Professional."

"You will not, and will not allow any third-party to, use the Amazon AI Services to, directly or indirectly, develop or improve a similar or competing product or service."

*spit take* This is coming from *AMAZON*?! The "we will compete with EVERYONE" company?!

"You and your End Users are solely responsible for any decisions made, advice given, actions taken, and failures to take action based on your use of Amazon AI Services."

"Don't blame us when you drive into the bay because Alexa said to!"

"66.1. You explicitly authorize AWS to peer your Amazon Lightsail VPCs and your Amazon VPCs when using Amazon Lightsail VPC peering."

Wait it does what?

"You may not use Amazon Lightsail in a manner intended to avoid incurring data fees from other Services"

You can just FEEL the hatred for flat, understandable pricing seeping out of this document.

The Amazon Chime section is almost certainly longer than the list of Amazon Chime customers.

"While Amazon Macie facilitates the identification of security issues, we do not represent, warrant, or guarantee that all security issues..." is how you legally say "Macie is super expensive and doesn't work."

Sagemaker Ground Truth has a "you must flag adult content" provision that translates to "please don't show pornography to minors."

Sumerian just has an asset licensing boilerplate spiel. Disappointing, I was hoping for comic gold there.

"You acknowledge that SAS does not provide legal advice."

I think the takeaway here is how uneven the entire document feels. Some services have one or two lines, others go on for pages.

I found the plot hard to follow, the characters unrelatable, and the climax generally unsatisfying.

Thank you for reading. I fix AWS bills / snark about clouds. I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

...but I do moderate Reddit's /r/legaladvice in my off hours.