Intelligent Advisor:Terms of Service

The index keywords that precede each clause are provided only to help you understand the main intent of that clause. They do not affect or limit the meaning or interpretation of these Terms. To protect your own rights, read the specific wording of each clause carefully.

Read carefully: Before you accept these Terms, read them thoroughly. Make sure that you read and fully understand the content of every clause, especially the clauses that exclude or limit liability and the clauses on governing law and dispute resolution. Those clauses are marked in bold with underlining, and you must pay close attention to them. If you have questions about the agreement, consult customer service or the relevant business department.

Acceptance: After you read these Terms and click to agree to them, or otherwise choose to accept them, you confirm that you have fully read, understood, and accepted all of their content, and that you and Alibaba Cloud have reached agreement. These Terms are formed on the date you click to confirm on the web page or otherwise choose to accept them. If, while reading these Terms, you do not agree with these Terms or with any clause in them, do not complete the acceptance.

1. Parties and scope of the agreement

These Terms of Service are the service agreement that you enter into with Alibaba Cloud Computing Co., Ltd. for your use of Alibaba Cloud services.

2. Service content

2.1. In these Terms, "the Service" refers to the technical and network support services that are displayed to you on the Alibaba Cloud website www.aliyun.com and its clients (individually or collectively, the "Alibaba Cloud website"), that you apply to try, and that Alibaba Cloud agrees to provide to you.

3. Service fees

3.1. You understand and agree that Alibaba Cloud currently provides the Service to you free of charge, which means that you do not need to pay Alibaba Cloud to activate or use the Service. Alibaba Cloud does not rule out charging fees in the future. In that case, Alibaba Cloud will publish the fee policy and rules at least 10 calendar days in advance by posting an announcement in an appropriate section of the website, sending an internal message, or using a similar method.

3.2. If you continue to use Alibaba Cloud services after Alibaba Cloud starts charging fees, you must pay according to the fee policy in effect at that time and comply with the Terms of Service that Alibaba Cloud has published and that are in effect at that time. If you refuse to pay the service fees after fees take effect, Alibaba Cloud may stop providing the Service to you and may stop retaining your business data.

4. Your rights and obligations

4.1. After you successfully activate the Service, you may require Alibaba Cloud to provide the Service to you in accordance with these Terms and with the service descriptions, technical specifications, and other content displayed on the relevant pages of the Alibaba Cloud website.

4.2. Your use of Alibaba Cloud services must comply with the Alibaba Cloud Service Usage Rules and with these Terms, including Section 15, Additional notes on the use of public preview services.

4.3. You are responsible for the integrity and confidentiality of the data that you store on the Alibaba Cloud platform and of the credentials and passwords that are used to access and manage the products and services on the Alibaba Cloud platform. You bear all losses and consequences caused by the loss or disclosure of such data, credentials, or passwords due to improper maintenance or improper protection on your part.

4.4. You must retain the access log records of your own website as required by laws and regulations such as the Cybersecurity Law and the Administrative Measures for Internet Information Services. The records must include the information content published and the time it was published, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and domain names. You must cooperate and provide these records when a competent state authority makes a lawful inquiry. You bear the corresponding legal liability that arises if you fail to retain the records as required.

4.5. To keep your data secure, you are responsible for backing up your data. Alibaba Cloud products or services may provide data backup features or tools for you, and you are responsible for using them to complete the backups.

4.6. You are responsible for the source and content of your user business data. Alibaba Cloud advises you to carefully assess whether the source and content of the data are lawful. You bear the corresponding results and liability if the content of your user business data violates laws, regulations, departmental rules, or national policies.

4.7. You understand and agree that the state secrets of the People's Republic of China are protected by law and that you have an obligation to safeguard them. Your use of Alibaba Cloud services must comply with the applicable confidentiality laws and regulations and must not endanger the security of the state secrets of the People's Republic of China.

4.8. You must also carefully read and comply with the service descriptions, technical specifications, usage procedures, operation documents, and other content displayed on the pages of the Alibaba Cloud website (collectively, the "Operation Guidelines"), and you must operate in accordance with them. You bear the consequences of any violation of the Operation Guidelines. Alibaba Cloud also reminds you to assess the risks and operate with caution.

5. Rights and obligations of Alibaba Cloud

5.1. Alibaba Cloud provides the Service as agreed.

5.2. During the service period, Alibaba Cloud provides you with the following after-sales services:

• 5.2.1. Alibaba Cloud provides 24/7 telephone support and online ticket consultation to answer the questions that you encounter during use.

• 5.2.2. Alibaba Cloud provides fault support services. You must report faults by submitting an online ticket. Alibaba Cloud promptly provides support for faults that do not result from your own actions, excluding faults caused by your actions, force majeure, or other matters beyond the control of Alibaba Cloud.

  5.3. Alibaba Cloud is responsible only for operating and maintaining the underlying layers below the operating system and the software that Alibaba Cloud provides, namely the technical architecture of the Service and the operating system provided by Alibaba Cloud. You are responsible for the layers above the operating system, such as the applications that you install on the system. In addition, upgrading the operating system yourself may cause downtime and other adverse effects, so assess the risks and operate with caution.

5.4. You understand that Alibaba Cloud cannot guarantee that the services it provides are free of defects. For example, Alibaba Cloud security products cannot guarantee the absolute security of your hardware or software. However, Alibaba Cloud undertakes to continuously improve its service quality and service levels. Therefore, you agree that even if the services provided by Alibaba Cloud contain defects, those defects are unavoidable at the current level of industry technology and are not considered a breach by Alibaba Cloud. You agree to work with Alibaba Cloud to resolve such defects.

5.5. Some Alibaba Cloud services may provide an account authorization management feature, which allows you to grant all or part of your operation permissions on a service to one or more authorized accounts that you designate. In that case, all operations performed under any authorized account are considered operations that you performed under your own account, and you bear the corresponding liability and the service fees incurred.

5.6. You understand and acknowledge that Alibaba Cloud provides security protection for certain services, such as "Cloud Security Server Guard", and related management and monitoring features and services, such as "Cloud Monitor". Although Alibaba Cloud has tested these services in detail, it cannot guarantee that they are fully compatible with all software and hardware systems, nor can it guarantee that the software and services are completely accurate. If an incompatibility or a software error occurs, immediately disable or stop using the affected feature and contact Alibaba Cloud promptly for technical support.

6. User business data

6.1. Alibaba Cloud understands and acknowledges that all data that you process, store, upload, download, distribute, or otherwise handle by using the services provided by Alibaba Cloud is your user business data, and that you fully own your user business data.

6.2. Alibaba Cloud makes no unauthorized use or disclosure of user business data, except as required to carry out your service requests or in the following cases:

• 6.2.1. When a competent state authority lawfully inquires about or accesses user business data, Alibaba Cloud has an obligation to cooperate as required by the applicable laws, regulations, or policy documents and to disclose the data to third parties or to administrative, judicial, or other institutions.

• 6.2.2. You and Alibaba Cloud separately reach an agreement.

  6.3. You can delete, change, or otherwise handle your user business data. If you release the Service or delete data, Alibaba Cloud deletes your data and, following your instructions, no longer retains that data. Operate with caution when you delete or change data.

6.4. Unless laws and regulations expressly provide otherwise, a competent authority requires otherwise, or both parties agree otherwise, Alibaba Cloud continues to store your user business data, if any, only during a grace period in any of the following cases:

• When the service period expires.

• When the Service is terminated early, including early termination agreed by both parties and early termination caused by other reasons.

• When your payment is overdue.

  The length of the grace period is specified in the dedicated terms, product documentation, service descriptions, or similar materials that apply to the services you ordered. When the grace period expires, Alibaba Cloud deletes all user business data, including all cached and backup copies, and no longer retains any of your user business data.

6.5. Once user business data is deleted, it cannot be recovered. You bear the consequences and liability that result from the deletion. You understand and agree that Alibaba Cloud has no obligation to continue to retain, export, or return user business data.

6.6. As agreed between you and Alibaba Cloud, Alibaba Cloud stores user business data in the data center that you select. Alibaba Cloud abides by its security commitments to users and protects the data that users store in Alibaba Cloud data centers in accordance with applicable laws.

7. Intellectual property

7.1. The intellectual property in any materials, technology or technical support, software, services, or similar items that one party provides to the other party under these Terms belongs to the providing party or its lawful rights holder. Unless the providing party or the lawful rights holder gives express consent, the other party has no right to copy, distribute, transfer, license, or provide those intellectual achievements to others for use; otherwise, that party bears the corresponding liability.

7.2. You warrant that the materials you submit to Alibaba Cloud, your use of Alibaba Cloud services, and the results produced by your use of Alibaba Cloud services do not infringe the lawful rights and interests of any third party. Alibaba Cloud warrants that the services it provides to you do not infringe the lawful rights and interests of any third party.

7.3. If a third-party organization or individual questions or files a complaint about the ownership of the intellectual property in the materials involved in your use of Alibaba Cloud services, or about the ownership of the intellectual property in the Alibaba Cloud services that you use, both you and Alibaba Cloud are responsible for producing the relevant intellectual property documentation and for cooperating with the other party in handling the complaint. The breaching party is responsible for resolving any resulting claim, litigation, or potential litigation, for bearing the related costs and losses, and for holding the other party harmless.

8. Confidentiality

8.1. In these Terms, confidential information means the business secrets (including financial secrets), technical secrets, know-how, and other information and materials that must be kept confidential and that one party (the "receiving party") obtains or learns from the other party (the "disclosing party"), or that arise from the performance of these Terms by both parties. The information and materials that must be kept confidential include product materials, product plans, prices, financial and marketing plans, business strategies, customer information, customer data, research and development, software, hardware, API data interfaces, technical specifications, designs, special formulas, and special algorithms. This definition applies regardless of the form of the information and materials or the medium on which they are carried, and regardless of whether the disclosing party indicated their confidential nature orally, graphically, in writing, or in another way at the time of disclosure.

8.2. Both parties must take appropriate measures to properly safeguard the confidential information provided by the other party, with no less care than they use to protect their own confidential information. Both parties may use the confidential information only for the uses or purposes related to these Terms.

8.3. Both parties warrant that confidential information is disclosed only to the officers and employees within their respective organizations who are engaged in the relevant business, and both parties strictly require the employees who have access to that confidential information to comply with the confidentiality obligations in this section.

8.4. The restrictions above do not apply in the following cases:

• 8.4.1. The receiving party lawfully owned the confidential information before or at the time these Terms were entered into.

• 8.4.2. The confidential information was already public or could be obtained from the public domain when it was communicated to the receiving party.

• 8.4.3. The receiving party obtained the confidential information from a third party that has no confidentiality or non-disclosure obligation.

• 8.4.4. The confidential information has become public or can be obtained from the public domain without any breach of the obligations agreed in these Terms.

• 8.4.5. The confidential information was independently developed by the receiving party or its affiliates or subsidiaries, without benefiting from information obtained from the disclosing party or its affiliates or subsidiaries.

• 8.4.6. The receiving party discloses the confidential information at the request of a court or another legal or administrative authority, through oral questioning, an inquiry, a request for information or documents, a subpoena, a civil or criminal investigation, or another proceeding.

• 8.4.7. The receiving party discloses information because it must submit materials to, or provide explanations to, an administrative authority, industry association, or similar organization about the other party to apply for a business qualification, obtain a certification, or comply with a national or industry standard or certification. In such cases, the receiving party must follow the principle of disclosing the minimum necessary information and must require the organization that obtains the confidential information to keep it confidential to a standard no lower than that of these Terms.

  8.5. You and Alibaba Cloud must both make their best efforts to prevent the disclosure of the confidential information described above. If such a disclosure occurs, both parties must cooperate to take all reasonable measures to avoid or mitigate the resulting harm. If the disclosure causes losses to the other party, the responsible party must compensate the other party for the direct economic losses incurred.

9. Service termination and changes

9.1. The service period terminates early in any of the following cases:

• 9.1.1. Both parties agree to terminate early.

• 9.1.2. Alibaba Cloud gives advance notice that the public preview or the free trial period is ending.

• 9.1.3. You materially breach these Terms, including a material violation of the applicable laws and regulations or a material breach of any commitment that you make under these Terms. In that case, Alibaba Cloud may terminate the Service early, up to and including deleting all your data.

• 9.1.4. You understand and fully acknowledge that Alibaba Cloud has established, and will continue to improve as technology develops, the technical measures needed to defend against computer viruses, network intrusions, attacks and sabotage (including DDoS attacks), and other matters or acts that endanger network security (collectively, "such acts"). However, network security technology is limited and relative, and such acts are unforeseeable. Therefore, Alibaba Cloud may decide to suspend or terminate the Service if such acts against your website harm Alibaba Cloud or other Alibaba Cloud networks or servers (including local, remote, and international networks and servers), or if such acts affect the smooth connection between Alibaba Cloud and the Internet or between Alibaba Cloud and specific networks, servers, and internal Alibaba Cloud systems.

  9.2. You understand and acknowledge that, because of technical upgrades, service system upgrades, business strategy adjustments, or the need to accommodate major national technical, regulatory, or policy changes, Alibaba Cloud does not guarantee that it provides a given service permanently, and Alibaba Cloud may change the form, specifications, or other aspects of the services it provides, such as service prices and billing models. Before Alibaba Cloud terminates such a service or makes such a change, it notifies you in advance through one or more channels, such as a website announcement, an internal message, an email, or an SMS message.

10. Liability for breach of contract

10.1. If you breach any commitment, warranty clause, service usage rule, or obligation in these Terms, or if Alibaba Cloud determines that your use is abnormal, Alibaba Cloud may, based on the severity of the case and at its sole discretion, unilaterally take one or more of the following measures:

• (1) restrict or suspend your use of the Service;

• (2) stop providing the Service and terminate these Terms;

• (3) pursue your legal liability;

• (4) other measures that Alibaba Cloud considers appropriate.

  You bear the losses that you incur when Alibaba Cloud suspends the Service, terminates the Service, or takes other measures under the preceding provision.

10.2. If your violation of the applicable laws and regulations, these Terms, or the related rules causes losses to Alibaba Cloud, subjects Alibaba Cloud to claims from other users or any third party, or subjects Alibaba Cloud to penalties from an administrative authority, you must fully compensate Alibaba Cloud, the other users, or the relevant third party for their actual losses, including reasonable attorney fees.

10.3. You understand and agree that, given the special nature of computers and the Internet, the following situations do not constitute a breach by Alibaba Cloud:

• 10.3.1. Alibaba Cloud interrupts the Service for a short time to configure, maintain, or upgrade systems and servers.

• 10.3.2. The access speed of your website decreases because of congestion on Internet routes.

  10.4. Limitation and exclusion of liability: You understand and agree that although Alibaba Cloud services provide support for service availability and reliability, Alibaba Cloud makes no commitment as to any service availability or reliability during the trial period, whether the trial is free or paid. Alibaba Cloud also assumes no liability for your work with the trial services or for the results of that work.

10.5. Under no circumstances is Alibaba Cloud liable for any indirect, consequential, punitive, incidental, or special damages, including the loss of profits that you suffer from using Alibaba Cloud services, even if you have been informed of the possibility of such losses.

10.6. To the extent permitted by law, the liability for damages that Alibaba Cloud bears under these Terms does not exceed the total service fees paid for the service in question during the preceding 12 months.

11. Notices

11.1. When you use Alibaba Cloud services, you must provide Alibaba Cloud with true and valid contact information, including your email address, telephone number, and mailing address. If your contact information changes, you must update it promptly and remain reachable. The member account, including any RAM users, through which you receive internal messages and system messages is also a valid contact method for you.

11.2. Alibaba Cloud sends notices of various kinds to you through one or more of the contact methods described above. The content of such notices may have a significant favorable or unfavorable effect on your rights and obligations, so make sure that you check them promptly.

11.3. Alibaba Cloud sends notices to you through the contact methods described above. Written notices sent electronically, including announcements, SMS messages sent to the telephone number you provided, emails sent to the email address you provided, and system messages and internal messages sent to your account, are considered delivered when they are sent successfully. Written notices sent on paper are considered delivered on the fifth calendar day after they are mailed to the address you provided.

11.4. You must make sure that the contact information you provide is accurate and valid, and you must keep it up to date. If legal documents cannot be delivered, or are not delivered on time, because the contact information you provided is inaccurate or because you did not promptly report a change to your contact information, you bear the legal consequences that may arise.

12. Force majeure

12.1. If force majeure or another accidental event makes the performance of these Terms impossible, unnecessary, or meaningless, the party affected by the force majeure or accidental event is not liable.

12.2. Force majeure and accidental events are objective events that cannot be foreseen, overcome, or avoided and that have a significant impact on one or both parties. They include natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and epidemics, and social events such as civil unrest, government actions, interruptions of telecommunications trunk lines, hacking, network congestion, technical adjustments by telecommunications authorities, and government controls.

13. Governing law and dispute resolution

13.1. The laws of the People's Republic of China apply to the conclusion, effectiveness, interpretation, amendment, supplementation, termination, and performance of these Terms and to the resolution of disputes under them. If the law contains no relevant provisions, commercial practices or industry practices apply.

13.2. You and Alibaba Cloud resolve disputes that arise from your use of Alibaba Cloud services, and disputes related to Alibaba Cloud services, through negotiation. If negotiation fails, either party may file a lawsuit with the Xihu District People's Court.

14. Miscellaneous

14.1. The attachments to these Terms, the service descriptions and price descriptions on the relevant pages of the Alibaba Cloud website, and the order pages that you confirm and accept (including the dedicated terms, service descriptions, and operation documents for the products) are an integral part of these Terms. In the event of any inconsistency, the following order of precedence applies:

• (1) service descriptions, price descriptions, and other order pages;

• (2) dedicated terms and attachments; and

• (3) the general clauses of these Terms.

  14.2. If the content of these Terms changes, Alibaba Cloud notifies you of the changes by posting an announcement in an appropriate section of the Alibaba Cloud website 30 days in advance. If you continue to use Alibaba Cloud services, you are considered to have accepted the changes made by Alibaba Cloud.

14.3. Alibaba Cloud may, with advance notice, transfer all or part of its rights and obligations under these Terms to an Alibaba Cloud affiliate.

14.4. If Alibaba Cloud waives a right provided in these Terms when you are negligent or in breach, that waiver is not considered a waiver with respect to your other or subsequent negligence or breach of the same kind.

14.5. If any clause of these Terms is deemed repealed, invalid, or unenforceable, that clause is considered severable and does not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining clauses.

14.6. The clauses on warranties, confidentiality, intellectual property, governing law, and dispute resolution in these Terms do not lapse when these Terms terminate.

15. Additional notes on the use of public preview services