General Terms of Service

These Terms of Service constitute a valid contract between Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Alibaba Cloud) and you or the legal entity you represent (hereinafter referred to as "you"). You accept these Terms of Service by stamping a seal, clicking to confirm on a web page, or by other means. If any inconsistency exists between the stamped version and the version accepted by clicking to confirm on a web page or by other means, the stamped version shall prevail.

Regarding these Terms of Service, pay special attention to the clauses on limitations and exemptions of liability, the clauses on how Alibaba Cloud identifies and handles your violations and breaches of contract, and the clauses on the choice of a governing court. Clauses on limitations and exemptions of liability may be highlighted in bold or with an underline to draw your attention. Before you accept these Terms of Service, read all content carefully. If you have questions about any clause in these Terms of Service, contact the relevant Alibaba Cloud business department. Alibaba Cloud will explain the clauses to you. If you do not agree with any content of these Terms of Service, or cannot accurately understand Alibaba Cloud's explanation of the clauses, do not proceed with any subsequent operations.

1. Service content

1.1. In these terms, "Service" refers to the network connectivity, device management, software services, and technical support that Alibaba Cloud provides to you based on its capabilities in cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence. These services can be used for connecting and managing devices, transmitting, analyzing, and processing data, and software development. The software provided by Alibaba Cloud is a component of the Service. The software is not sold or distributed to you. You may only use the software within the scope of these Terms of Service.

1.2. The services provided by Alibaba Cloud must comply with these Terms of Service.

2. Service fees

2.1. Pre-paid services

2.1.1. The service is activated after you pay. After activation, you can use the service once you receive the key and security token from Alibaba Cloud. The service term begins at the time of activation, not when you receive the key and security token.

2.1.2. For services sold for a fixed term, such as a subscription, the service term ends when the subscribed term expires.

2.1.3. For services sold as a resource plan (or package), the service term ends when the service term of your subscribed resource plan expires or when the resources in the plan are fully consumed, whichever occurs first.

2.1.4. You must use all services in the resource plan within the service term. If the service term of the resource plan expires, any unused services will be forfeited. Alibaba Cloud will not provide any replacements or supplements.

2.1.5. You will first use the services from your subscribed resource plan. Unless otherwise required by law or agreed upon by both parties, if the resources in your plan are fully consumed or the service term expires, and you continue to use the service without subscribing to a new resource plan, Alibaba Cloud will consider you to be using the pay-as-you-go version of that service, if available. Alibaba Cloud will then bill you based on the pay-as-you-go rates.

2.2. Pay-as-you-go services: After activation, you can use Alibaba Cloud services, provided you have no outstanding payments and no other agreement is in place. You must ensure that your account has a sufficient balance to continue using the service until it is terminated as stipulated by law or these Terms of Service.

2.3. The service term will be terminated early if any of the following occurs:

2.3.1. Both parties agree to early termination.

2.3.2. You commit a material breach of this agreement, which includes violating relevant laws and regulations. In such cases, Alibaba Cloud has the right to terminate the service early and purge all your data.

2.4. You understand and acknowledge that to accommodate technical upgrades, service system upgrades, changes in business strategy, or to comply with major national technical or policy changes, Alibaba Cloud does not guarantee that any specific service will be provided permanently. Alibaba Cloud has the right to change the form, specifications, or other aspects of the services provided, such as service prices and billing models. Before terminating a service or making such changes, Alibaba Cloud will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide advance notice through one or more of the following methods: website announcements, internal messages, email, or text messages.

3. Network security commitments

3.1. You promise not to distribute electronic advertisements or spam. You must not use services provided by Alibaba Cloud to distribute large amounts of unsolicited electronic advertisements or harmful information, such as pornographic content.

3.2. You promise not to use the services provided by Alibaba Cloud as a virtual server, for disk space rental, or as an illegal proxy server or mail server. According to the Alibaba Cloud Platform Security Rules, services cannot be used to connect to an SMTP service to send emails without prior approval and registration. Alibaba Cloud blocks SMTP services by default.

3.3. You promise not to use the resources and services provided by Alibaba Cloud to upload, download, store, or publish the following information or content, and not to facilitate the publication of such information by others, including but not limited to setting up URLs or banner links:

3.3.1. Political propaganda or news information that violates state regulations.

3.3.2. Information involving state secrets or security.

3.3.3. Superstitious, obscene, pornographic, or indecent information, or information that incites crime.

3.3.4. Illegal internet publishing activities such as prize-based gambling, gambling games, "private servers," or "game plug-ins."

3.3.5. Information that violates national ethnic and religious policies.

3.3.6. Information that obstructs the secure operation of the Internet.

3.3.7. Information that infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of others, or other information or content detrimental to social order, public security, or public morals.

3.3.8. Other content that violates laws, regulations, departmental rules, or national policies.

3.4. You promise not to use, or cause programs or processes to use, an excessive amount of resources on the Alibaba Cloud computing platform (hereinafter referred to as the "Cloud Platform"), such as server memory, CPU, or network bandwidth. This includes, but is not limited to, activities like cryptocurrency mining. Such activities must not place a severe and unreasonable load on the Cloud Platform, or on the network or servers of other Alibaba Cloud users. This applies to local, remote, and international networks and servers. These activities must not affect the normal connection between Alibaba Cloud and the global Internet, between Alibaba Cloud and specific networks or servers, or within Alibaba Cloud itself. They must not cause the failure or freezing of Alibaba Cloud Platform products and services or the servers of other Alibaba Cloud users, or make products or applications based on the Cloud Platform inaccessible.

3.5. You promise not to engage in any activity that undermines or attempts to undermine network security. This includes, but is not limited to, phishing, hacking, online fraud, and hosting or spreading viruses, trojans, or malicious code. It also includes using a virtual server to conduct attacks on other websites or servers, such as scans, sniffing attacks, ARP spoofing, and DDoS attacks.

3.6. You promise not to perform any action that changes or attempts to change the system configurations provided by Alibaba Cloud or that undermines system security.

3.7. You promise not to use this service to engage in the business of selling protection services, such as Anti-DDoS or DNS protection.

3.8. You promise not to use Alibaba Cloud's services for activities that allow users in mainland China to access illegal information from outside mainland China without network censorship.

3.9. You promise not to engage in activities that endanger network security, such as unauthorized access to other networks, interfering with the normal operation of other networks, or stealing network data. You must not provide programs or tools specifically designed for activities that endanger network security, such as network intrusion, interference with normal network functions and protective measures, or theft of network data. If you know that others are engaged in activities that endanger network security, you must not provide them with technical support, advertising, payment settlement, or other assistance.

3.10. You promise not to engage in any other illegal activities or actions that violate these Terms of Service.

3.11. If Alibaba Cloud discovers that you have violated the preceding clauses, it has the right to take appropriate measures based on the situation, including but not limited to immediately terminating the service, suspending the service, or deleting the corresponding information. If a third-party organization or individual raises a concern or complaint about you, Alibaba Cloud will notify you. You are responsible for providing an explanation and supporting materials within the specified time. If you fail to provide countervailing evidence or fail to respond by the deadline, Alibaba Cloud will take measures including but not limited to immediately terminating the service, suspending the service, or deleting the corresponding information. If Alibaba Cloud cannot contact you because you did not update your contact information or your contact information is incorrect, this will be considered a failure to respond by the deadline.

4. User data preservation, destruction, and download

4.1. The data you store on Alibaba Cloud belongs to you. Alibaba Cloud will not use or disclose your data without your authorization, except when executing your service instructions or under the following circumstances:

4.1.1. Required by law or requested by administrative or judicial bodies.

4.1.2. You and Alibaba Cloud have agreed otherwise.

4.1.3. Disclosure to a third party is required because you have violated relevant Chinese laws and regulations.

4.1.4. To provide the software or service you requested, it is necessary to share your data with a third party. In such cases, disclosure is limited to the scope necessary to provide the service. Alibaba Cloud requires the third party to use the data only for providing the service and to maintain data confidentiality at a standard no lower than that of these Terms of Service.

4.2. You promise to follow the principles of legality, legitimacy, and necessity when collecting and using personal information. You must publish your rules for collection and use, clearly state the purpose, method, and scope of information collection and use, and obtain user consent.

4.3. You promise not to collect personal information that is irrelevant to the services you provide. You must not collect or use personal information in violation of laws, administrative regulations, or the agreements between you and your users. You must process the personal information you store in accordance with laws, administrative regulations, and your agreements with users.

4.4. You promise not to leak, tamper with, or destroy the personal information you collect. You must not provide personal information to others without user consent, except for data that has been processed to be unidentifiable and cannot be reversed.

5. Service modifications

5.1. You agree to comply with these Terms of Service and related management specifications and procedures. You understand that the content of service features, APIs, technical documents, these Terms of Service, and announcements published by Alibaba Cloud may change from time to time. If service features are added, deleted, or modified without substantially affecting you, Alibaba Cloud has the right to release these changes without notice. You agree that Alibaba Cloud will treat new features as part of the service content and perform its obligations according to these Terms of Service. Alibaba Cloud will provide notice for the following changes:

5.1.1. Alibaba Cloud has the right to change, suspend, or terminate some or all service content or features from time to time. This applies if there is a major change to a service feature or a major adjustment to the service model that imposes additional obligations on you, such as charging fees or requiring development resources.

5.1.2. To continuously improve Alibaba Cloud services, Alibaba Cloud has the right to modify the APIs in the service from time to time. We will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide you with technical integration convenience and help you complete the integration with the changed APIs.

5.1.3. Alibaba Cloud has the right to modify the content of these Terms of Service and the Service Level Agreement (if any). Alibaba Cloud will notify you of the modifications by posting an announcement on the appropriate page of its official website 30 days in advance. If you do not agree with the aforementioned modifications made by Alibaba Cloud, you must stop using Alibaba Cloud's services. In this case, Alibaba Cloud will settle the service fees with you (if any), and you must migrate your business data. If you continue to use Alibaba Cloud services or fail to take effective measures to stop using them, you will be deemed to have accepted the modifications made by Alibaba Cloud to the relevant clauses of these Terms of Service.

6. Your rights and obligations

6.1. You must pay the corresponding service fees as agreed in these Terms of Service.

6.2. You promise that:

6.2.1. If you use Alibaba Cloud services for business or non-business activities that require a license or approval from relevant state authorities, you must obtain that license or approval. This includes but is not limited to the following:

6.2.1.1. If you develop programs on the service and provide personalized services to users, you must ensure that the relevant services have obtained licenses or approvals from the relevant state authorities.

6.2.1.2. If you provide non-commercial Internet Information Services, you must complete the non-commercial website ICP filing. You must ensure that all submitted filing information is true and valid, and promptly submit updates in the filing system when the information changes.

6.2.1.3. If your website provides commercial Internet Information Services, you must also obtain a commercial website license from the local communications administration department.

6.2.1.4. If you provide electronic bulletin board services such as BBS, you must also complete filings or obtain corresponding approvals as required by relevant laws and policies.

6.2.1.5. If you operate an online game website, you must obtain a Network Culture Business License in accordance with the law.

6.2.1.6. If you operate an online video website, you must obtain a License for Online Transmission of Audio-Visual Programs in accordance with the law.

6.2.1.7. If you engage in Internet information services such as news, publishing, education, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, you must obtain the review and consent of the relevant competent authorities in accordance with laws, administrative regulations, and relevant state provisions before you apply for a business license or complete filing procedures. You understand and acknowledge that the list above does not exhaust all types of licenses or approvals from state authorities that you may need for your business or non-business activities. You must obtain all relevant licenses or approvals and comply with the requirements of national and local laws and regulations as they are issued from time to time.

6.3. You understand and agree that if you permit or assist any individual or legal entity to use the services described in these Terms of Service, or if you indirectly provide the services to individuals or legal entities in the form of products or solutions, this will be considered your own use. You must ensure that the aforementioned individuals or legal entities strictly comply with the rights and obligations stipulated in these Terms of Service when using the services. Alibaba Cloud is responsible only to you for the service. If a third party suffers losses from using Alibaba Cloud's services through your products or solutions, Alibaba Cloud's liability for breach of contract extends only to you. You are responsible for handling any disputes between you and the third party.

6.4. You must not install or use pirated software on Alibaba Cloud services or platforms. You are fully responsible for the consequences of your own actions, such as the software you install and the operations you perform.

6.5. You are responsible for the integrity and confidentiality of your service data stored on Alibaba Cloud, and the security tokens and passwords used to access and manage various products and services on the Alibaba Cloud platform. You are solely responsible for all losses and consequences arising from the loss or leakage of the aforementioned data, security tokens, and passwords due to your failure to properly maintain or keep them confidential.

6.6. You must submit to Alibaba Cloud the list of contacts and personnel who will execute these Terms of Service and manage the user network and various products and services, along with their contact information, and provide necessary assistance. If there are any changes to the above personnel, you must update the information online and notify Alibaba Cloud promptly. You are responsible for all consequences arising from inaccurate, incomplete, or untrue information provided by you, and from the actions or inactions of the personnel.

6.7. You are responsible for the content of the data you store on Alibaba Cloud services. You are solely responsible for all consequences and liabilities arising from uploading or publishing public information that violates laws, regulations, departmental rules, or national policies. Alibaba Cloud monitors for such violations and will use the Ali Green Web feature to alert you to non-compliant or suspected non-compliant content. We strongly advise you to carefully assess the legality of your data content.

6.8. You must retain access log records for your website in accordance with laws and regulations such as the "Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services" and the "Provisions on the Administration of Internet Electronic Bulletin Services." This includes the content of published information, its publication time, Internet Protocol (IP) address, domain name, and more. You must cooperate by providing this information when lawfully queried by relevant state authorities. You must retain access log records for no less than six months as required by law. You are solely responsible for all legal liabilities arising from failure to retain relevant records as required.

6.9. Data backup is your obligation and responsibility. Although Alibaba Cloud's services may be configured with tools that have daily data backup features, this does not mean that data backup is Alibaba Cloud's obligation. Alibaba Cloud does not guarantee complete backup of user data and assumes no responsibility for your data backup tasks or their results.

7. Alibaba Cloud's rights and obligations

7.1. Alibaba Cloud must provide services as agreed in the Terms of Service.

7.2. Alibaba Cloud provides consulting services to paying users to answer questions they encounter during use.

7.3. Alibaba Cloud will resolve failures that are not caused by your actions, except for those caused by you, force majeure, or events beyond Alibaba Cloud's control.

7.4. You understand and acknowledge that Alibaba Cloud may need to migrate the services you use. Due to technical limitations, Alibaba Cloud services may experience temporary instability during migration. Alibaba Cloud will use its best efforts to improve its technology and minimize the impact on your products and services. You agree that Alibaba Cloud is not liable for any service instability during migration.

8. Intellectual property

8.1. The intellectual property rights of any materials, technology, technical support, software, or services provided to you by Alibaba Cloud belong to Alibaba Cloud or a third party.

8.2. If your use of Alibaba Cloud's services requires you to install the related software development kit (SDK), Alibaba Cloud grants you a license to copy the service-related SDK into your product and distribute it with your product to third parties during the term of this agreement. Except for the license mentioned above, you have no right to distribute, transfer, license, or provide the above resources to others for use. Otherwise, you will be held liable.

8.3. Except as expressly permitted by Alibaba Cloud, you must not modify, translate, adapt, rent, sublicense, distribute on information networks, or transfer the services or software provided by Alibaba Cloud. You must also not reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to discover the source code of the services or software provided by Alibaba Cloud in any other way.

8.4. Without Alibaba Cloud's consent, any modifications you make to the licensed subject matter and any derivative works created based on it, including all rights in the modified parts and derivative works, such as intellectual property rights, belong to Alibaba Cloud.

8.5. If a third-party organization or individual raises a question or complaint about the ownership of intellectual property rights of the materials involved in your use of Alibaba Cloud services, you are responsible for providing relevant intellectual property proof and cooperating with Alibaba Cloud's complaint handling process.

8.6. If Alibaba Cloud's services involve the licensed use of third-party software, you agree to abide by the constraints of the relevant license agreements.

9. Disclaimer

9.1. You understand and agree that if you choose to use modules that have not been tested and certified by Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Cloud is not responsible for any issues related to network security, privacy security, or the unavailability of Alibaba Cloud services caused by the modules you purchased, your own actions, or other third parties. You will bear all losses and handle any complaints from and compensation to smart device users, and hold Alibaba Cloud harmless from any resulting loss.

9.2. You understand that Alibaba Cloud's services and products are provided "as is". Alibaba Cloud cannot guarantee that its services are flawless (for example, Alibaba Cloud security products cannot guarantee the absolute security of your hardware or software). However, Alibaba Cloud is committed to continuously improving its service quality and service levels. You understand and agree that Alibaba Cloud makes no express, implied, or other representations or warranties regarding the service content or any third-party services, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, flawlessness, or permanent data retention. Therefore, you agree that even if the services provided by Alibaba Cloud have defects, such defects will not be deemed a breach of contract by Alibaba Cloud if they are unavoidable given the state of technology in the industry at the time. You agree to cooperate with Alibaba Cloud to resolve any such defects.

10. Confidentiality

10.1. Confidential Information refers to all technical and non-technical information disclosed by one party to the other. This includes but is not limited to product information, product plans, prices, financial and marketing plans, business strategies, customer information, customer data, research and development materials, software and hardware, APIs, technical specifications, designs, special formulas, and special algorithms.

10.2. Each party to these Terms of Service agrees to keep the other party's Confidential Information confidential and to strictly limit access to it to employees who must abide by the confidentiality obligations of this clause. The receiving party must not disclose the Confidential Information to any third party, unless compelled by law by a state authority or if the Confidential Information has already entered the public domain.

10.3. Both parties to these Terms of Service explicitly acknowledge that Confidential Information is key confidential information and an important asset for each party. Both parties agree to make their best efforts to protect the Confidential Information from disclosure. In the event of a leak of Confidential Information, both parties shall cooperate to take all reasonable measures to prevent or mitigate the resulting damages.

10.4. This clause shall survive the termination of these Terms of Service.

11. Term and termination

11.1. The service term begins on the date you click to confirm these Terms of Service and is valid for one year. The service term for products you have purchased is five years from the date the product first connects to the network. Even if the term of this agreement expires, both parties will continue to perform their service-related rights and obligations as stipulated in this agreement during the product's service term. After the product's service term expires, Alibaba Cloud has the right to charge end-users a software service fee.

11.2. The service term will be terminated early if any of the following occurs:

11.2.1. Both parties agree to early termination.

11.2.2. You seriously violate these Terms of Service. This includes but is not limited to: a. you fail to fulfill your payment obligations as agreed, or b. you seriously violate legal provisions. In such cases, Alibaba Cloud has the right to terminate the service early and will not refund any fees you have already paid.

11.2.3. You understand and fully acknowledge that although Alibaba Cloud has established (and will continue to improve with technological development) necessary technical measures to defend against network security threats or behaviors such as computer viruses, network intrusions, and destructive attacks (including but not limited to DDoS) (hereinafter collectively referred to as "such behaviors"), given the limitations, relativity, and unpredictability of network security technology, if you encounter such behaviors and they cause harm to Alibaba Cloud or its other networks or servers (including but not limited to local, remote, and international networks and servers), or affect the normal connection between Alibaba Cloud and the global Internet, or between Alibaba Cloud and specific networks, servers, or within Alibaba Cloud itself, Alibaba Cloud may decide to suspend or terminate the service. If the service is terminated, the service fee will be calculated based on the actual service period (a partial month is counted as a full month), and any remaining balance (if any) will be refunded.

12. Liability for breach of contract

12.1. Any party that breaches these Terms of Service must bear liability for breach of contract in accordance with the law.

12.1. Any party that breaches these Terms of Service shall be held liable in accordance with applicable law.

12.2.1. Alibaba Cloud needs to briefly interrupt the service during server configuration or maintenance.

12.2.2. Your website access speed decreases due to congestion on the Internet.

12.3. Alibaba Cloud is not liable for any indirect, consequential, punitive, incidental, or special damages, including loss of profits you may suffer from using Alibaba Cloud services, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such losses.

12.4. If you are overdue in paying service fees to Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Cloud has the right to charge you a penalty at a rate of 0.2% per month.

12.5. Under no circumstances will Alibaba Cloud be liable to you for any direct, indirect, incidental, or special losses, including loss of customers, business opportunities, investment opportunities, goodwill, and data, even if the occurrence of such damages was foreseeable. Alibaba Cloud's total liability for compensation for breach of these Terms of Service shall not exceed the total service fees for the service in breach.

13. Force majeure

13.1. If the performance of these Terms of Service becomes impossible, unnecessary, or meaningless due to force majeure or other unforeseen events, the party affected by the force majeure or unforeseen event shall not be held liable.

13.2. Force majeure or unforeseen events refer to objective events that are unforeseeable, insurmountable, and unavoidable, and have a significant impact on one or both parties. This includes but is not limited to natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and epidemics, along with social events such as riots, government actions, interruptions of major telecommunication lines, cyberattacks, network congestion, technical adjustments by telecommunication departments, and government regulations.

14. Applicable law and dispute resolution

14.1. These Terms of Service are governed by the laws of the People's Republic of China.

14.2. If a dispute arises in connection with these Terms of Service, both parties should resolve it through timely negotiation. If negotiation fails, either party may file a lawsuit with the People's Court of Xihu District, Hangzhou City.

15. Miscellaneous

15.1. The service descriptions and price descriptions provided by Alibaba Cloud and accepted by you are an integral part of these Terms of Service. If there is any inconsistency between the service descriptions, price descriptions, and these Terms of Service, these Terms of Service shall prevail.

15.2. If Alibaba Cloud has committed to a service level for this service, you can find the Service Level Agreement provided for the relevant product business and enjoy your rights according to that Service Level Agreement.

15.3. Alibaba Cloud has the right to transfer all or part of its rights and obligations under these Terms of Service to an Alibaba Cloud affiliate by providing 30 days' prior notice on its official website.

15.4. If any clause, by its nature or otherwise, should survive the termination of this agreement, it shall be deemed to survive. These clauses include but are not limited to warranty clauses, confidentiality clauses, intellectual property clauses, and applicable law and dispute resolution clauses.