After backlash, the cloud provider Vultr has updated its terms to remove a clause that a Reddit user feared required customers to "fork over rights" to "anything" hosted on its platform.
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.
In a statement provided to Ars, Vultr CEO J.J. Kardwell said that the terms were revised to "simplify and clarify" language causing confusion for some users.
"We're very focused on being responsive to the community and the concerns people have, and we believe the strongest thing we can do to demonstrate that there is no bad intent here is to remove it," Kardwell told The Register.
A plain read of the terms without scrolling seemed to substantiate the Reddit user's worst fears that "it's possible Vultr may want the expansive license grant to do AI/Machine Learning based on the data they host.
Cochrane told Ars that they had been contacted by many customers over the past two days and had no way to identify the Reddit user to confirm if they had terminated their account.
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