Research has highlighted that cloud contracts are often governed by the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) of how the service will be delivered. Interestingly, more often than not it is a set of documents containing the terms that govern the relationship between the customer and the Cloud service provider. These can be relatively short and simple, or lengthy, complex and split over several documents. Generally T&Cs are made up of common documents like Terms of Service (ToS), Service Level Agreement (SLA), Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), Privacy Policy or a mixture of these components.

But!

Once the following statements from leading cloud service providers are examined, the reason for ensuring you truly understand cloud contracts becomes clear.

Cloud Contract -- Facebook

"We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities."