

On Rackspace Cloud you can't link to offensive content - dchest
http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/legal/aup/

======
Dylan16807
"relates in any manner to non-consensual sex acts" Better not make a bad joke
involving dropping the soap.

"is defamatory" Better not insult anyone.

"exposes trade secrets" Why?

"promotes illegal drugs" Better tell the white house petition site it's too
offensive for rackspace.

This is a pretty overboard CYA script.

------
molecule
_may result in retaliation against the Rackspace Cloud by offended viewers._

This seems excessively broad. E.g., recursively: I am offended by this
passage. Other viewers who are similarly offended _may_ retaliate, ergo
Rackspace cannot _publish, transmit or store on or via the Rackspace Cloud’s
network and equipment any content or links to_ its own Cloud Acceptable Use
Policy (AUP).

~~~
mseebach
The most regrettable bit is really the euphemism. It's not like there's a huge
and diverse population of viewers that, if offended, will engage in
retaliation.

Of course, as a private company Rackspace is free to deny service to those
that may bring harm to their employees. Though, it's still sad that refusing
to take a stand for that most simple and basic freedom (speech) is so
uncontroversial.

------
tisme
Fortunately hosting is a commodity and you can get what rackspace sells from
any number of providers. Don't like the terms? Don't do business with
Rackspace. Vote with your feet and your dollars and make sure you tell them
you're leaving because you don't like their terms of service. If enough of
their customers do that they'll get the message eventually.

And if they don't get that particular message they'll have to move on some
other metric (perhaps price) to get people to continue to host with them in
spite of their terms of service.

Personally I wouldn't have a problem hosting with them under these terms, I'd
simply ignore the terms and factor in the risk of being kicked out by
spreading whatever I was hosting there across multiple providers. That's a
good strategy anyway, even when you think you're in compliance with the terms
of service where ever you host your stuff.

~~~
goodside
If your content is such that Rackspace closes your account, reliable hosting
probably isn't nearly as much a commodity as you describe. _All_ hosts have
clauses in their TOS to let them close your account if you become an
inconvenience.

~~~
Dobbs
You can often approach hosting providers out of band and arrange deals for
sites that are normally against their TOS. I've seen it happen on multiple
occasions.

~~~
goodside
If you could let me know any specific hosts that do this (in private if
necessary) I would much appreciate it.

------
duaneb
Looks fine to me. I would hope they would issue takedown requests rather than
e.g just pullin the plug.

~~~
gdwatson
Rackspace Takes Koran-Burning Church Site Offline[1] : "Dove World refused,
and Rackspace gave the church _several hours_ to migrate the content."
(emphasis mine)

I guess that's better than just pulling the plug, but not much.

[1] <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368948,00.asp>

------
johnnymonster
I don't get the Excessive Use section. Don't you pay for what you use. If your
VM has 7g ram, are you not allowed to use all of it all the time?

~~~
madmaze
I believe they are mostly talking about maxxing out your CPU usage since I am
sure they oversell their CPU availability. This could really be fixed with
affinity settings, but that may also interfere in peak moments. Im sure they
have that in there so that they can kick you if you start holding you CPU at
100% load 24/7

~~~
tisme
If they advertise with certain features then you should be able to use those
features.

------
dchest
On a related note, Hetzner's terms of service say "material not deemed in good
taste is not permitted" <http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/agb/>

------
ChuckMcM
For about $2500/month you can put a rack of machines into a colo connected to
the peering net. Depending on how clever you are that's like 1/2 PB of disk
space and plenty of CPU to host what ever you want.

You can do it for less than that if you're willing to rent an 'office' near a
tie point. Just takes a bit more work, and of course you are always going to
be threatened with the government coming in and taking all your servers if
they don't like you but, that's kinda the way it is.

------
interg12
I'm going to venture a guess that hosting controversial clients is more
trouble (in cease and desists) than its worth. I don't think Rackspace is
hurting itself by not servicing the controversial/illegal content market.

------
stevenleeg
It looks pretty reasonable to me... They don't want child porn and rape videos
on their servers.

I honestly don't see the problem here.

~~~
dchest
Citing the whole thing and highlighting the problem in italic:

===

You may not publish, transmit or store on or via the Rackspace Cloud’s network
and equipment any content _or links to any content_ that the Rackspace Cloud
reasonably believes:

\- Constitutes, depicts, fosters, promotes or relates in any manner to child
pornography, bestiality, or non-consensual sex acts;

\- is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence or contains
harassing content or hate speech;

\- is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any
jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;

\- is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy;

\- creates a risk to a person’s safety or health, creates a risk to public
safety or health, compromises national security or interferes with a
investigation by law enforcement;

\- improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary
information of another person;

\- is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;

\- infringes on another person’s copyright, trade or service mark, patent or
other property right;

\- promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal
gambling or illegal arms trafficking;

\- is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws
applicable to you or to the Rackspace Cloud; or

\- is otherwise malicious, fraudulent or may result in retaliation against the
Rackspace Cloud by offended viewers.

===

For example, publishing this comment would be a violation of these terms,
because it links to exposed trade secret
([http://web.archive.org/web/20080404222417/http://cypherpunks...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080404222417/http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1994/09/msg00304.html)),
to content that infringes trademark (<http://www.apple.com/iphone>), violates
export control laws (<https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher/network>), and
content that is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright
protections (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime>).

~~~
rhizome
That's not the only part. They have complete discretion by their use of the
following words:

    
    
        excessively
        risk
        interferes
        improperly
        intended
        promotes
        malicious
        may result

------
geori
How does this compare to Amazon? Does Amazon permit unauthorized scraping,
etc? I'm guessing that they do.

~~~
dchest
<http://aws.amazon.com/aup/>

The wording is "You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct
others to use, the Services or AWS Site for any illegal, harmful or offensive
use, or to transmit, store, display, distribute or otherwise make available
content that is illegal, harmful, or offensive. Prohibited activities or
content include...".

No "linking" mentioned here, although, "otherwise make available" is a broad
definition.

------
cientifico
That means that a XSS attach, or just a comment, and you can shutdown any
company hosted at Rackspace?

~~~
sanswork
Sure, if Rackspace completely ignores the context of the infraction. It's save
to assume they don't.

~~~
RKearney
>It's save to assume they don't.

Never assume anything with regards to your entire companies infrastructure
being in the hands of a third-party.

