This morning we received word of a new Terms of Service from one our infrastructure providers, Vultr, owned by Constant.com. Within their TOS they outline that they claim ownership of any content that is placed on their servers. An excerpt from the new TOS (which we have NOT agreed to) is below:
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information, text, opinions, messages, comments, audio visual works, motion pictures, photographs, animation, videos, graphics, sounds, music, software, Apps, and any other content or material that You or your end users submit, upload, post, host, store, or otherwise make available (“Make Available”) on or through the Services (collectively, “Your Content,” “Content” or “User Content”).
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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.====When logging in we are not able to view or manage any of our services without agreeing to the new TOS (unless you know web development and how to get around that).This is wholly unacceptable, especially to a company that prides itself on privacy. Therefore we are moving expeditiously to move your sites and services to our other hosting partner, DigitalOcean.We partnered with Vultr several years ago because they offered Windows machines and were impressed with their uptime and customer service. However, this flies in the face of everything we were “sold”.On the up-side, you will be moved to a newer operating system. The physical location of your server will not change (for example, if you are in the western part of the country you will be placed in a datacenter closest to you).This is not going to be easy, fun (for us) nor profitable. Quite the opposite. But it is the prudent thing to do.If you have no problem with this and wish for your server(s) to remain with Vultr please let me know and we will note as such. Otherwise, we will be in touch over the next few days regarding your site(s) and servers.As always, thank you for your business and consideration.
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash