Amazon on Monday unveiled its cloud-based "music locker" service, known as Amazon Cloud Player. The company promised a service that will "securely store music in the cloud," but does Amazon renege on that promise in its terms of service?
Tucked into the company's terms of use, which Amazon notes is a "binding contract," are two sections governing Amazon's right to access your files, as well as the security of Amazon Cloud Player.
On the security front, Amazon writes that
"We do not guarantee that Your Files will not be subject to misappropriation, loss or damage and we will not be liable if they are. You're responsible for maintaining appropriate security, protection and backup of Your Files."Amazon's service provides 5GB of free cloud storage, or 20GB free if you purchase one Amazon MP3 album. Music can be accessed via the Web or Android devices, and Amazon offers storage for documents, photographs, and other digital files via Amazon Cloud Drive. Anything over 20GB is $20 per year, 50GB is $50 per year, 100GB is $100 per year, and so on, all the way up to 1,000GB for $1,000 per year.
While it might be reasonable to expect people using those free 5GB to back up their files somewhere else, what about people who are paying? If Amazon is not providing any security and can't be responsible for loss or damage, what am I paying for? And how does Amazon define misappropriation?
"We work very hard to establish customer trust and are committed to making our products secure. Amazon Cloud Drive is built on the proven Amazon Web Service platform that provides highly secure and reliable technology infrastructure in the cloud for hundreds of thousands of customers in more than 190 countries," Amazon said in a statement.
On Amazon's right to access files, users give the company "the right to access, retain, use and disclose your account information and Your Files" in certain situations.
That includes tech support, investigations into compliance with Amazon's term of use, protecting the service from fraud or security threats, or complying with applicable laws, Amazon said.
This makes a bit more sense as it relates to pirated content. Amazon likely doesn't want to become involved in copyright litigation, and therefore reserves the right to remove infringing content.
"You must ensure that you have all the necessary rights in Your Files that permit you to use the Service without infringing the rights of any copyright owners, violating any applicable laws or violating the terms of any license or agreement to which you are bound," Amazon writes in its terms of service.
But "disclose your account information and your files"? Apparently, Amazon cloud is not the best place for sensitive information. As PCMag software analyst Michael Muchmore noted, however, competing services also say that they'll access your data to enforce their agreements and comply with law enforcement. If you need really private, secure online storage, you're better off with an option like
Carbonite,
IDrive, or
SOS Online Backup, which let you keep an
encryption key on your own premises so that even the storage vendor can't access it, Muchmore said.
On the copyright front, U.S. record labels are apparently irked that Amazon did not secure content licenses before launching this service. "We don't need a license to store music," Craig Pape, director of music at Amazon, told the New York Times, because "the functionality is the same as an external hard drive." But a Sony spokeswoman told Reuters that the company was "keeping all our legal options open" regarding Amazon's service.
