(followup at https://mwl.io/archives/23504)
I suppose the hip kids would say this is enshittification, but it’s certainly a betrayal.
According to their new Terms of Service:
You hereby grant to Vultr a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide license (including the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to use, reproduce, process, adapt, publicly perform, publicly display, modify, prepare derivative works, publish, transmit and distribute each of your User Content, or any portion thereof, in any form, medium or distribution method now known or hereafter existing, known or developed, and otherwise use and commercialize the User Content in any way that Vultr deems appropriate, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties, for purposes of providing the Services to you.
This is unacceptable. No other hosting company does this.
The TLDR on the side is deceitful. They say that we own our stuff. Fine. The fine print declares that we license our stuff to them, for full exploitation, without compensation.
I have not agreed to those ToS. Fortunately, I can migrate off their systems without console access, so I do not have to agree. If you use vultr, I suggest you do the same. Also contact them through their contact page and state your refusal. I’m told you can cancel via their page without logging in, but haven’t yet tried it.
I am now investigating alternatives for hosting FreeBSD and OpenBSD systems. Preferably that take custom installs.
Absolutely unacceptable. Beyond evil. Your quote from Vultr’s TOC is ALL one sentence. Who writes like that?
Upon hearing this news yesterday, I immediately ran over to my hosting vendor’s Terms page and did not see anything like this Vultr quote.
I’m assuming Vultr will change their ToC if they expect to stay afloat. They’re privately owned by Constant, so we don’t have a ticker to see how their stock is going.
I’m in the same boat. There is openbsd.amsterdam but that’s a stretch if you are not in Europe.
I think this needs clarification. It does not LOOK like they are trying to be evil. I’d ask and see if it was poorly written before moving services.
TWO DAYS, and Vulture has removed that long sentence from their T&C. Did ya’ll see the newz?
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/vultr_content_controversy/
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/03/28/2319230/cloud-server-host-vultr-rips-user-data-ownership-clause-from-tos-after-web-outage
So far only a few responses to the above news (search hits were near the top of DuckDuckGoose–funny how that is–nothing to see here, look over there), but they are good (worth reading).
So you guyz still going to ditch Vulture? (rhetorical question, it’s none of my business).
“We know the average customer doesn’t have a law degree, CEO tells us” Niice, while the uproar was certainly caused by “netizens” (great “OLD” term, I hardly ever hear it), most of us “renting” these VPS and “cloud servers” are geeks. Sys Admins, installing firewalls, setting up and patching web servers, WAFs and posting stuff. Most responses I’ve seen on the interwebz to this legal fiasco are well beyond normal “netizens”.
Bottom Line: The geeks have power. Hitting them in their pocketbooks and going viral when things don’t smell right to us is awesome!
In the nicest way possible: Vulture sure as @#$% LOOKS like they are being evil. What? I’m expected to cross my t’s and dot my i’s but a hosting provider is not?
Absolutely unacceptable. The worst part is that they’ve had this clause for 3 years. On an emergency basis I’ve moved one of my systems to Ramnode – I expect to also move another two, and to investigate my options with other hosting providers.
This is totally unacceptable. I also think that this is illegal in Europe. (IANAL)
I suggest people who are screwed by this, and if migration is harder for them, they get in touch with a lawyer with background in data privacy laws.
… for purposes of providing the Services to you.
I would argue the only piece of this clause that is unnecessary would be “… and otherwise use and commercialize“.
Keep in mind that the organization needs to ‘do things’ with you content in order to serve it, for example they may apply an image optimization algorithm to your large file upload… they may replicate your content across a cluster of hosts.
This clause, especially since it is capped with the final sentence, does not seem that big of a deal.
… but, I am not a lawyer, just have seen a lot of hosting contracts.
I’ve moved off Vultr quite a while ago. Sad to see them destroy themselves, it’s easier to pay the AWS tax instead.
Vultr is the Compaq of VPS hosting: once a leader with a high-quality product, but one which went downhill quite fast. Fortunately I now have a colocated HPE DL20 Gen10 Plus, which hosts my website, email, Mastodon, and eight Tor exit relays.