Service Agreement
Alibaba Cloud Product Service Agreement
Notice Clauses
Welcome! This Alibaba Cloud Product Service Agreement (the "Agreement") is entered into between you and Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. ("Alibaba Cloud") and governs your use of Alibaba Cloud services.
The index keywords that precede each clause are provided only to help you understand the main idea of that clause. They do not affect or limit the meaning or interpretation of the Agreement. To protect your rights, we recommend that you read each clause carefully.
[Read Carefully] Before you accept this Agreement, read it thoroughly. Pay close attention to all terms, especially those that limit or exclude liability and those concerning governing law and dispute resolution. These clauses appear in bold with underlining. If you have any questions about the Agreement, contact our customer support or the relevant business department.
[Acceptance Action] By clicking "Agree" or otherwise accepting this Agreement, you confirm that you have read, understood, and accepted all of its terms. This Agreement becomes legally binding between you and Alibaba Cloud upon your acceptance. If you do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, do not accept it.
General Service Terms
1. Parties and Scope of Agreement
This Service Agreement governs your use of Alibaba Cloud services and is entered into between you and Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd.
2. Service Description
In this Agreement, "service" refers to any service that is displayed on the Alibaba Cloud website (www.aliyun.com) or client application, collectively referred to as the "Alibaba Cloud website", which you request and Alibaba Cloud agrees to provide.
3. Service Fees
3.1. Service fees are listed on the ordering page. You can select your preferred service type and pay the corresponding price. Services are available on a prepaid or pay-as-you-go basis.
3.2. Prepaid:
3.2.1. For prepaid services, Alibaba Cloud will begin providing the service only after you complete the payment. If you do not pay immediately, your order will be reserved for seven days. If payment is not received within seven days, or if the service sells out during that period, the order will expire and be canceled.
3.2.2. To ensure uninterrupted service, you must pay the renewal fee at least seven days before your service period expires.
3.3. Pay-as-you-go: Pay-as-you-go services allow you to use the service first and pay later. For specific billing rules, see the pay-as-you-go billing model and rates published on the Alibaba Cloud website.
3.4. Alibaba Cloud reserves the right to suspend or terminate services and technical support until all outstanding fees are paid. Alibaba Cloud also reserves the right to charge a daily penalty of 0.05% on overdue amounts and pursue other legal remedies.
3.5. You understand that any free services or promotional offers are one-time special discounts. They cannot be converted to cash or used to pay for other service fees.
4. Your Rights and Obligations
4.1. After you successfully order a service, you are entitled to receive the service from Alibaba Cloud as described in this Agreement and on the relevant service description and technical specification pages of the Alibaba Cloud website.
4.2. After you order an Alibaba Cloud service, you are entitled to free after-sales support. Alibaba Cloud also offers additional paid technical services.
4.3. You must pay the applicable service fees as indicated on the Alibaba Cloud website and as stipulated in this Agreement.
4.4. Your use of Alibaba Cloud services must comply with Alibaba Cloud's Service Usage Rules and this Agreement.
4.5. You are responsible for maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of your data stored on the Alibaba Cloud platform, along with the passwords and security tokens used to access and manage your Alibaba Cloud products and services. You are liable for all losses and consequences that result from your failure to properly maintain or protect this information.
4.6. You must comply with applicable laws, such as the Cybersecurity Law and the Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services. This includes retaining access logs for your website, which contain published content, timestamps, IP addresses, and domain names. You must provide these records to government authorities upon lawful request. You are liable for any legal consequences that arise from your failure to retain these records.
4.7. You are responsible for backing up your data to ensure its security. Alibaba Cloud may provide backup features or tools, but you are responsible for using them to complete your backups.
4.8. You are responsible for the source and content of your user business data. Alibaba Cloud recommends that you verify the legality of this data. You are liable for all consequences that result from user business data that violates laws, regulations, or national policies.
4.9. You understand and agree that state secrets of the People's Republic of China are legally protected, and you have an obligation to safeguard them. Your use of Alibaba Cloud services must comply with applicable confidentiality laws and must not compromise the security of state secrets.
4.10. You must read and follow the service descriptions, technical specifications, usage procedures, and operational documentation (collectively, "Operational Guidelines") on the Alibaba Cloud website. You must perform all operations in accordance with these guidelines. You are liable for all consequences that result from violating these guidelines. Alibaba Cloud strongly advises you to assess all risks and proceed with caution.
5. Alibaba Cloud’s Rights and Obligations
5.1. Alibaba Cloud will provide services as agreed.
5.2. During the service term, Alibaba Cloud provides the following after-sales support:
5.2.1. 7×24 phone and online ticketing support to answer your questions about service usage.
5.2.2. Alibaba Cloud provides fault support services. You can report faults by submitting online tickets. Alibaba Cloud will promptly address any faults that are not caused by your actions, force majeure, or other factors outside of Alibaba Cloud's control.
5.3. You can also purchase additional paid after-sales services. For more information, see the Alibaba Cloud website.
5.4. Alibaba Cloud is responsible only for maintaining the underlying infrastructure and software that it provides, including the technical architecture and the operating system. You are responsible for all components above the operating system, such as the applications you install. If you upgrade the operating system yourself, it may cause downtime or other issues. You should carefully assess the risks before you proceed.
5.5. You acknowledge that 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. Therefore, you agree that defects in the services provided by Alibaba Cloud will not be considered a breach of contract if such defects are unavoidable based on the state of technology in the industry at the time. You agree to cooperate with Alibaba Cloud to resolve any such defects.
5.6. Certain Alibaba Cloud services include account authorization features that allow you to grant full or partial operational permissions to one or more designated accounts. All actions performed by these authorized accounts are considered your own actions. You are responsible for all associated fees and consequences.
5.7. You understand and acknowledge that Alibaba Cloud provides security protection features, such as Server Guard, and management and monitoring features, such as Cloud Monitor, for certain services. Although these features are thoroughly tested, they may not be fully compatible with all hardware or software systems, and their accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you encounter any incompatibility issues or errors, you must immediately disable the affected feature and contact Alibaba Cloud for support.
6. User Business Data
6.1. All data that you store, upload, download, distribute, or otherwise process using Alibaba Cloud services is your user business data. You retain full ownership of this data.
6.2. Alibaba Cloud will not use or disclose your user business data without your authorization, except to fulfill your service requests or in the following cases:
6.2.1. If required by law enforcement or government authorities, Alibaba Cloud must comply with legal requirements and disclose your data to third parties or judicial and administrative bodies.
6.2.2. When you and Alibaba Cloud mutually agree otherwise.
6.3. You can delete or modify your user business data at any time. If you release a service or delete data, Alibaba Cloud will remove the data according to your instructions and will not retain any copies. You should exercise caution when you perform these operations.
6.4. Upon service expiration, early termination, whether by mutual agreement or otherwise, or overdue payment, Alibaba Cloud will retain your user business data only for a limited buffer period. The buffer period is specified in the applicable service-specific terms, product documentation, or service description. After this period, Alibaba Cloud will permanently delete all user business data, including cached or backup copies, and will not retain any copies.
6.5. User business data that is deleted cannot be recovered. You are liable for all consequences that result from data deletion. You understand and agree that Alibaba Cloud has no obligation to retain, export, or return your data after it has been deleted.
6.6. In accordance with applicable laws and Alibaba Cloud's security commitments, Alibaba Cloud stores your user business data in the data center that you select.
7. Intellectual Property
7.1. The intellectual property rights for all materials, technology, technical support, software, and services provided under this Agreement belong to the party that provides them or their rightful owners. Without explicit written permission, the receiving party may not copy, distribute, transfer, license, or allow any third party to use this intellectual property. The receiving party is liable for any unauthorized use.
7.2. You warrant that the materials you submit to Alibaba Cloud, your use of Alibaba Cloud services, and any resulting outputs do not infringe on the rights of any third party. Alibaba Cloud warrants that its services do not infringe on the rights of any third party.
7.3. If a third party challenges the intellectual property rights related to your use of Alibaba Cloud services or the materials you have submitted, both parties must provide relevant evidence and cooperate to resolve the complaint. The party at fault is responsible for resolving any claims or lawsuits, bearing all associated costs and losses, and indemnifying the other party.
8. Confidentiality
8.1. "Confidential Information" means any business secret, including financial secrets, technical secret, trade secret, or other confidential information that is disclosed by one party ("Disclosing Party") to the other ("Receiving Party"), whether orally, visually, or in writing, regardless of the format or medium. This includes product plans, pricing, financial and marketing strategies, business strategies, customer information, R&D data, software, hardware, API data interfaces, technical documentation, designs, formulas, and algorithms.
8.2. Both parties must protect Confidential Information with at least the same degree of care that they use for their own confidential information and may use it only for purposes related to this Agreement.
8.3. Confidential Information may be accessed only by employees or representatives who have a need to know. Both parties must ensure that these individuals comply with this confidentiality obligation.
8.4. The restrictions in this clause do not apply in the following circumstances:
8.4.1. Was lawfully in the Receiving Party's possession before or at the time of signing this Agreement.
8.4.2. Was publicly available or obtainable from public sources at the time of disclosure.
8.4.3. Was received from a third party without confidentiality obligations.
8.4.4. Becomes publicly available through no fault of the Receiving Party.
8.4.5. Was independently developed by the Receiving Party or its affiliates without using the Disclosing Party's information.
8.4.6. Is required to be disclosed by a court order or a legal or administrative requirement.
8.4.7. Is required to be disclosed to government agencies, industry associations, or certification bodies to obtain licenses, certifications, or compliance approvals. In these cases, the Receiving Party must disclose only the necessary information and require the recipient to maintain a level of confidentiality that is at least equivalent to the terms of this Agreement.
8.5. Both parties must use their best efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure. If a breach occurs, both parties must cooperate to mitigate the damage. The party at fault must compensate the other party for any direct financial losses that result from the breach.
9. Service Activation, Termination, and Modification
9.1. Prepaid services:
9.1.1. The service is activated upon payment. You will then receive the login credentials and service tokens required to use the service. The service term begins at the time of activation, not when you receive the credentials.
9.1.2. Fixed-term services, such as subscription services, expire at the end of the purchased period. Resource plan services expire when the plan period ends or when the resources are exhausted, whichever occurs first.
9.1.3. You must use all resources within the plan period. Unused resources expire at the end of the period and will not be replaced or refunded.
9.1.4. Your usage will first consume the quotas of your resource plan. If the plan expires or the resources are depleted and you continue to use the service without renewing, your usage will be converted to the pay-as-you-go billing method, if available, and you will be billed accordingly.
9.2. Pay-as-you-go services:
Unless otherwise agreed or if you have unpaid balances, you can use the service immediately upon activation. You must maintain a sufficient account balance to continue using the service until it is terminated in accordance with the law or this Agreement.
9.3. A service can be terminated early if:
9.3.1. Both parties agree to the early termination.
9.3.2. You commit a material breach of this Agreement, for example, by violating laws or any commitment made in this Agreement. In this case, Alibaba Cloud may terminate the service and delete all of your data.
9.3.3. If your website is exposed to threats, such as viruses, intrusions, or DDoS attacks, that harm Alibaba Cloud's network or servers or disrupt connectivity, Alibaba Cloud may suspend or terminate the service, despite any security measures in place. If the service is terminated, you will receive a pro-rated refund, calculated on a monthly or daily basis for partial months.
9.3.4. Alibaba Cloud provides 30 days' notice through a website announcement, internal message, or written notice. Any prepaid and unused fees will be refunded to your Alibaba Cloud account.
9.4. You understand that Alibaba Cloud may discontinue or modify services, including pricing and billing models, due to technical upgrades, service improvements, business strategy changes, or regulatory requirements. Alibaba Cloud will notify you in advance through website announcements, internal messages, email, or SMS.
10. Breach of Contract
10.1. If you breach any promise, warranty, rule, or obligation in this Agreement, or if Alibaba Cloud considers your usage to be abnormal, Alibaba Cloud may, at its sole discretion, take one or more of the following actions: (1) restrict or suspend the service, (2) terminate the service and this Agreement, (3) pursue legal action, or (4) take other appropriate measures. You are liable for all resulting losses.
10.2. If your breach of law or this Agreement causes Alibaba Cloud to suffer losses, incur claims from other users or third parties, or receive penalties from government authorities, you must fully compensate Alibaba Cloud, other users, or third parties for all actual losses, including reasonable attorney fees.10.3. You understand and agree that the following do not constitute a breach of contract by Alibaba Cloud:
10.3. You understand and agree that the following do not constitute a breach by Alibaba Cloud:
10.3.1. Short service interruptions due to system or server maintenance or upgrades.
10.3.2. Slower website access due to Internet congestion.
10.4. If an issue caused by Alibaba Cloud prevents you from using the service for 72 consecutive hours, you may terminate the service. This does not apply to issues caused by factors beyond Alibaba Cloud's control.
10.5. In no event will Alibaba Cloud be liable for any indirect, consequential, punitive, incidental, or special damages, including lost profits, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
10.6. To the extent permitted by law, Alibaba Cloud's total liability under this Agreement will not exceed the total service fees that you paid for the service in the preceding 12 months.
11. Notices
11.1. You must provide accurate contact information, including your email address, phone number, and mailing address, when you use Alibaba Cloud services. You must promptly update this information if it changes. Your account, including any associated RAM user accounts, which is used to receive internal messages and system notifications, is also considered a valid contact method.
11.2. Alibaba Cloud will send notices to one or more of your contact methods. These notices may significantly affect your rights or obligations. We recommend that you monitor them closely.
11.3. Electronic notices, such as website announcements, SMS messages, emails, system messages, and internal messages, are considered delivered upon successful transmission. Paper notices are considered delivered on the fifth calendar day after they are mailed to the address you provided.
11.4. You are responsible for ensuring that your contact information is accurate and up to date. You are liable for any consequences that result from undelivered legal documents due to outdated or inaccurate information.
12. Force Majeure
12.1. Neither party is liable if performance becomes impossible, unnecessary, or meaningless due to force majeure or unforeseen events.
12.2. Force majeure includes natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, and pandemics, and social events, such as wars, civil unrest, government actions, telecommunication backbone failures, hacking, network congestion, telecommunication adjustments, and government controls.
13. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
13.1. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the People's Republic of China. In cases where the law is silent, commercial or industry practices will apply.
13.2. Any disputes that arise from your use of Alibaba Cloud services will first be addressed through negotiation. If a resolution cannot be reached, either party may file a lawsuit in the People's Court of Xihu District.
14. Miscellaneous
14.1. The attachments to this Agreement, along with the service descriptions, pricing details, and your confirmed order pages on the Alibaba Cloud website, including product-specific terms, service descriptions, and operational documentation, form an integral part of this Agreement. In the event of a conflict, the order of precedence is as follows: (1) the service, pricing, and order pages, (2) the product-specific terms and attachments, and (3) the general terms of this Agreement.
14.2. If this Agreement is amended, Alibaba Cloud will post a notice on its website 30 days in advance. If you continue to use the services after the changes take effect, you are deemed to have accepted the amended agreement.
14.3. Alibaba Cloud may assign its rights and obligations under this Agreement, in whole or in part, to an affiliate after providing prior notice.
14.4. Alibaba Cloud's failure to enforce a right under this Agreement in one instance does not constitute a waiver of that right for future or similar breaches.
14.5. If any provision of this Agreement is deemed void, invalid, or unenforceable, that provision shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of this Agreement.
14.6. Provisions of this Agreement, such as those regarding warranty, confidentiality, intellectual property, applicable law, and dispute resolution, shall survive the termination of this Agreement.
Service-Specific Terms
1. [Simple Log Service]
1.1. After your first overdue payment, you can continue to use Simple Log Service for 24 hours. If you fail to add funds to your account and clear the overdue amount within 24 hours, Alibaba Cloud will suspend the service, freeze your operations, continue to store your data, and continue billing.
1.2. If you have not cleared the overdue amount seven days after the service is suspended, measured from the exact time of suspension, Alibaba Cloud will terminate the service and permanently and irreversibly delete all of your data.
2. [OpenSearch Service]
2.1. If you clear your overdue balance within 24 hours of it becoming overdue, your service will not be affected.
2.2. If your account has an overdue balance for more than 24 hours, Alibaba Cloud will suspend certain OpenSearch functions. You can view or delete applications, but you cannot pause applications, upload files, run search tests, or rebuild indexes. Your instance will remain reserved and continue to accrue charges. Full functionality will be restored only after you clear the overdue balance.
2.3. If you fail to clear all overdue charges within 30 calendar days of the initial overdue date, Alibaba Cloud will terminate this service 30 days after the overdue date and permanently delete all your data.
3. [Resource Orchestration Service]
3.1. Although Resource Orchestration Service is currently free of charge, you must pay for any other Alibaba Cloud services that you provision using it, such as pay-as-you-go ECS instances. Unless otherwise agreed, you must pay all applicable fees, including partial fees for resources that were successfully provisioned before an orchestration failed, and comply with the terms of those services.
4. [Performance Testing Service]
4.1. You understand that the test results reflect data that is recorded by Performance Testing Service based on your instructions, such as the test method and target. Alibaba Cloud is not responsible for any actions you take or outcomes that result from this data.
4.2. You understand that applying a load to your target server may cause operational issues. Alibaba Cloud is not responsible for such outcomes. You should choose your target servers carefully.
4.3. You warrant that you have permission to perform performance tests on your selected servers.
5. [Message Queue Service]
5.1. For prepaid Message Queue orders, if you do not pay within three days of confirmation, the order expires.
5.2. For prepaid instances, such as the Enterprise Platinum Edition and Micro Message Queue, the service is paused upon expiration. If you do not renew the service within 168 hours, the instance is automatically released, and all data is permanently lost.
5.3. For pay-as-you-go Message Queue, if your account balance is insufficient to cover the charges and remains overdue for more than 72 hours, Alibaba Cloud will suspend the service. You will no longer be able to access the service from the console or using an API. Unprocessed messages are automatically purged and cannot be recovered.
6. [Global Transaction Service]
6.1. For prepaid Global Transaction Service, if you do not pay within three days of order confirmation, the order expires.
6.2. The prepaid Global Transaction Service terminates upon expiration. To continue using the service, you must renew it promptly. Alibaba Cloud will make reasonable efforts to send you renewal reminders. If you do not renew the service, the service group configurations are released seven days after expiration.
7. [StreamCompute Service]
When projects with a fixed service period, such as subscriptions, expire:
7.1. If you want to continue using the service after it expires, you must renew it promptly.
7.2. If you do not renew, Alibaba Cloud will suspend your project operations upon expiration but will retain the project and your data for seven days from the time of suspension. If you still have not renewed after seven days, Alibaba Cloud will release the project and delete all of your data.
8. [Cloud Monitor]
8.1. For paid fixed-term Cloud Monitor services, such as monthly or annual subscriptions, the service terminates upon expiration. To continue using the service, you must renew it promptly. If you do not renew, Alibaba Cloud will suspend your operations upon expiration and delete your custom monitoring time series data seven days after the suspension.
8.2. Alibaba Cloud provides usage data for your services, such as the memory that your applications consume. By enabling the free Cloud Monitor service, you agree to let Cloud Monitor consolidate and display this data in its service interface.
8.3. Cloud Monitor displays monitoring data but does not provide long-term storage. This data is retained according to the Alibaba Cloud retention policy. You can set custom retention rules, which may incur additional fees as specified on the Alibaba Cloud website. You must back up or migrate critical monitoring data before it expires.
9. [Data Integration]
9.1. Data Integration is billed on an hourly basis for the preceding hour. If your account has an overdue balance, you can continue to use the service for 24 hours. If you do not add funds to your account and clear the balance within 24 hours, Alibaba Cloud will stop the service and immediately terminate any running data integration tasks.
9.2. You must have legal rights to all data that is processed using Data Integration.
9.3. You understand that Data Integration does not provide data storage. You are responsible for storing and backing up your data.
10. [Natural Language Processing]
10.1. For subscription-based NLP services, you must use all purchased units within the service period. The service terminates upon expiration, even if you have unused units.
10.2. NLP offers prepaid (resource packs) and pay-as-you-go (per-call) billing.
10.2.1. The prepaid billing method requires you to purchase resource packs in advance. When your pack is depleted, you must purchase another one to continue using the service.
10.2.2. Unused prepaid resource packs are refundable within seven days of payment.
10.2.3. If your resource pack expires or is depleted and you continue to use NLP without purchasing a new one, your usage will be converted to the pay-as-you-go billing method, if available, and you will be billed accordingly.
10.3. The pay-as-you-go billing method bills you per call. If your resource pack is exhausted but you continue to make calls, your usage is billed on a per-call basis. Invoices are generated the next day at midnight.
10.3.1. If your account has an overdue balance, the service will continue until the next invoice is generated. If your account still has an overdue balance at that time, the service will stop. To restore the service, you must add funds to your account and clear the balance. (This applies to NLP 1.0 and 2.0.)
10.3.2. If your account has an overdue balance, the self-learning platform will suspend the NLP service and unpublish your models within one hour. To restore all functions, you must add funds to your account and clear the balance. (This applies to the NLP Self-Learning Platform.)
10.3.3. To avoid unnecessary charges, you should stop calling the NLP service when you no longer need it.
10.4. Alibaba Cloud provides its services with diligence, but technical limitations may affect the deliverables. The outputs provided by Alibaba Cloud are technical recommendations based on its current capabilities. You are responsible for deciding whether to adopt these recommendations and for all resulting actions and outcomes.