Online retailer Amazon made headlines during its Black Friday sales event when it offered unlimited online storage through its Amazon Cloud Drive service for only $5. The deal is very tempting at first glance but a closer look at its fine prints revealed some very interesting terms of use.
What immediately caught buyers' attention is the "unlimited storage" clause. Amazon's deal does offer unlimited storage but there are certain restrictions covering the type of files that users are allowed to upload into the cloud service.
The provision in question is under "Section 3.2 Usage restrictions and limits." According to ZDnet, it includes the following restrictions, "There may be limits on the types of content you can store and share using the Service, such as file types we don't support, and on the number or type of devices you can use to access the Service."
Other restrictions include commercial use. Users are only allowed to "store, retrieve, manage, and access" their files as long as they are personal and has no commercial purposes. In this provision, users who are planning to use the service for work related files are automatically disqualified.
According to Tech Crunch, the Amazon Cloud Drive service is aimed to compete with services like Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive. Based on the latest deal put out by Amazon, it seems that it is gaining traction ahead of its competitors.
On the other hand, many analysts are saying that Amazon is once again using clever marketing tactics in order to gain customers and it looks like it is paying off.