Those third party apps are not enabled by default, won't modify their functionality without your permission, and two of the three are open source.
And for me it's not so much that I trust Microsoft less than any other company. It's that using their services require so much trust, yet they give so little trust in return.
> A Reddit post incorrectly took portions of our Terms of Service out of context, which only pertain to content provided to Vultr on our public mediums (community-related content on public forums, as an example) for purposes of rendering the needed services – e.g., publishing comments, posts, or ratings. This is separate from a user’s own, private content that is deployed on Vultr services.
> In order to simplify and further clarify our ToS, we are removing the following sentence from Section 12.1(a) of our ToS
This doesn't seem to be true though. In the Terms of Service[1], "User Content" is defined as this in 12.a:
> (a) You are responsible for the 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”)
What is the "Services" then? It's explained here (first paragraph[1]):
> The Terms explain how you are permitted to use the services provided by and through our platform and website(s) (main url located at www.vultr.com) as well as all of our associated internet and online properties [...] Collectively, the Site, the Materials, and the services provided therein are referred to as the “Services”.
Is a website I host in Vultr an "associated online property"? When I upload or modify some of my website content through vultr.com, does it become User Content? This is very over-reaching on purpose (as most legalese tends to be) but not in a good way, I wouldn't want to have to go to court to prove that their non-binding blog post is correct and the binding legal terms are incorrect, neither should I nor anyone.
> Is a website I host in Vultr an "associated online property"?
No, I don't think a reasonable person would read what you've quoted and come away with that interpretation. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist about what reasonable person means.
Sorry for your downvotes, but they are earned. Predatory TOS [can be|will be|have been] abused by companies regardless of whether “reasonable people” created them or not.
Imagine your car dealer pushed over a 100pg finance contract with a first paragraph that said “we will take all your property if you miss a payment” but the dealer assured you that “we don’t really do that, it’s just lawyer stuff.” then said “you don’t need to read the rest, just sign here”.
How much of a great person would they have to be, and how much of an optimist would you have to be to sign it without reading the rest?
Ah ha, that explains my downvotes. I am not claiming the hosting provider are reasonable people. I'm referring to the reasonable person standard of contract law.
> The Terms explain how you are permitted to use the services provided by and through our platform and....
Platform = hosting.
There's no small text, there's no restrictions, there's no qualification. It said nothing about "public mediums" or "for purposes of rendering the needed services".
The relevant section is taken from part 12 (User Content) where User Content is specifically and narrowly defined as stuff you upload to the website services.
I actually think there is an attempt in the ToS as written to keep the definition narrow in the way that the parent comment quotes, but it is unfortunately not super well drafted, because there is a partially-explicit distinction between "platform" and "services" that may make sense to a legal person, but is not sufficiently clear for a technical person.
So not quite good enough, IMO, but a distinction is being made in the relevant section, and this can be seen if you read the paragraphs in question.
> "[...] 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”)"
1. the definition of "User Content" includes "your end users", something you can only have when using their cloud platform services, not when you're using their community forum.
2. It refers to "Services", not "website services"
> (a) If You use Our Services for any site, sub-domain, page or business model that allows Your end users or customers to control or upload material to Internet space assigned to You by Us, You shall be deemed to be acting as a "Service Provider" with respect to such services and/or customers. Service Providers include but are not limited to customers which; (i) resell bandwidth as hosts to third parties; (ii) operate user-generated content sites such as forums, "tube" sites, review sites, and online classified advertising sites; [...]
3. This paragraph refers to their hosting/platform services as just "Services", again.
I had a friend who developed a tic like this online.
Some people (to some extent, rightfully) see interaction as a series of shibboleths. Then, they employ them as one would a talisman, to ward off negative interactions, which then engenders negative interactions
"Show HN: Rem: Remember Everything (open source)", 196 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38787892
"I made an open source Windows app to rewind and search everything on screen", 166 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40105371
"Rewind: The Search Engine for Your Life", 92 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33421751