Cloudflare vs AWS

For the 1.1.1.1 public resolver, Cloudflare says it does not log personal information and keeps most limited query data only 25 hours. This is an unusually strong privacy commitment for a DNS service.

Cloudflare can suspend or terminate access at its sole discretion, with or without notice and for any or no reason. That means free-service users may lose access abruptly with little recourse.

The service is provided as-is and Cloudflare disclaims warranties while broadly limiting liability for damages. In practice, this makes it harder for users to recover losses if the website or free online services fail or cause harm.

Cloudflare expressly says it does not sell or rent personal information. That is a meaningful privacy commitment, though it still allows sharing with service providers, partners, and affiliates for business purposes.

Users can request access, correction, portability, deletion, restriction, or objection by contacting Cloudflare. Customers and admins can also update or export some account data directly through their account settings.

If you submit content, feedback, or suggestions, you keep ownership but give Cloudflare a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to use and modify it. Users should assume submitted materials can be reused indefinitely without payment.

Cloudflare can modify the terms at any time by posting updated terms, and your only stated remedy is to stop using the service. Users may need to monitor the terms themselves for important changes.

You agree to indemnify Cloudflare for claims and costs tied to your use, violations, or disputes involving third parties. This can shift legal and financial risk onto users if their activity triggers a claim.

Website visitors get cookie preference tools and opt-outs for interest-based advertising and some marketing sharing. This gives users some practical control over tracking on Cloudflare’s own sites.

Cloudflare says it may share information with marketing and advertising partners and may provide them your email or limited account information unless you opt out. This is not a sale, but it is still meaningful data sharing for promotion.

Disputes are routed to California law and exclusive courts in San Francisco County. This preserves a court path rather than mandatory arbitration, but it may be inconvenient or costly for users outside that area.

Beta and preview services are offered as-is, may change or end at any time, have no SLA, and content used in them may be deleted or become inaccessible. Users should avoid putting important or sensitive workloads there.

Some reserved-capacity products are noncancellable, nontransferable, and generally nonrefundable, even if you stop using AWS. This creates a meaningful financial lock-in risk for customers who prepay.

AWS states it is not in the business of selling customers’ personal information. That is a significant privacy-friendly statement, though it still shares data for advertising and service-provider purposes.

Depending on where you live, AWS offers rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object, port data, withdraw consent, and complain to regulators. These are strong user privacy rights, especially for EEA/UK/Switzerland and similar jurisdictions.

AWS collects information you provide, data generated automatically, and information from partners and public sources. It also uses personal information for personalization, marketing, fraud scoring, and credit-risk assessment.

AWS shares limited identifiers such as cookies or hashed email-derived codes with advertising partners for personalized ads. Even if direct identifiers are withheld, this still supports cross-site ad targeting.

Personal information may be shared with third-party sellers, service providers, affiliates, acquirers, and authorities. In practice, your data can circulate across a fairly large ecosystem beyond AWS itself.

AWS retains personal information as long as needed for stated purposes, legal compliance, tax/accounting, fraud prevention, security, and disputes. The lack of firm retention periods means data may be kept for a long time after account closure.

Users can manage account information, cookies, communications, and advertising preferences through AWS tools. This makes privacy choices more practical than policies that only offer email-based requests.

AWS expressly says it uses encryption, PCI DSS practices for card data, and physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards. That is a meaningful transparency and security commitment for account-holder information.

AWS says it will not use individualized usage data or your content to compete with your products or services. For business users, this is an important limitation on potentially exploitative platform behavior.

AWS's main privacy notice does not cover content stored or processed in customer accounts; those rules live in separate agreements and privacy materials. That separation is common for cloud providers but means users must review more than one document to understand data handling fully.