Amazon Web Services takes down Wikileaks; It's in the terms of service
Amazon Web Services has stopped hosting Wikileaks, according to various reports.
Fox News and Talking Points Memo both quote Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) as saying that Amazon has stopped hosting Wikileaks after staffers from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee asked about its relationship with the company.
We have calls out to confirm with Amazon.
The news shouldn't be all that surprising. For starters, Amazon Web Services has bigger corporate fish to land that could be jeopardize by messing around with Wikileaks. And it certainly doesn't help matters that Amazon Web Services hosts the high-profile Apps.gov.
How did Amazon get pulled into the Wikileaks flap? For starters, Amazon's cloud hosting service is self-serve. You just need a credit card. It's not like Wikileaks called a salesperson who would have freaked out or at least run the contract by a manager.
In any case, Amazon states clearly in its terms of service that it can host you as well as terminate an agreement at will. In the terms of service for Amazon Web Services, it says:
If you use this Site, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your AWS account and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account or password. AWS reserves the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content in its sole discretion.
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