Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account or using CloudPath Academy ("the Platform"), you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform. These terms apply to all users, including students, instructors, and visitors.

2. Account Registration & Eligibility

You must provide accurate information when creating your account. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your password and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at admin@cloudpathportal.com if you suspect unauthorized access.

Minimum age: You must be at least 13 years old. If you are in the EU, EEA, or UK, you must be at least 16 (or the lower digital-consent age set by your member state). If you are under 18, you confirm that you have parental or guardian consent. We do not knowingly accept registrations from anyone below the applicable age.

3. Subscriptions, Trials & Refunds

CloudPath Academy offers monthly subscription plans. All subscriptions automatically renew each month at the then-current price unless cancelled. You may cancel at any time through your billing settings or by emailing admin@cloudpathportal.com. Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then.

Free trial: A 7-day free trial is available once per person. Using multiple accounts to claim multiple trials is prohibited.

Refunds: If you are unhappy with your first paid month, contact us within 14 days of the first charge for a full refund — no questions asked. Subsequent monthly renewals are non-refundable but you can cancel at any time. EU/UK consumers may have additional statutory rights of withdrawal under their local consumer protection law; those rights are not waived by these terms.

Failed payments & dunning: If your renewal charge fails, we use Stripe Smart Retries to attempt the charge again over the following 7 days (typically on days 3, 5, and 7 after the initial failure). You will receive an email each time a retry fails so you can update your payment method via /billing. If the final retry fails, your subscription will be cancelled and Enrollment.tier will downgrade to FOUNDATIONS — you keep your progress, notes, and certificates earned, but lose access to upgraded curriculum until you re-subscribe.

Renewal notice: Monthly subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period. We send a reminder email 3 days before the trial conversion (for new subscribers) so you have a chance to cancel without being charged. Cancellations made at any point take effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep access until then.

All prices are in USD. We reserve the right to change pricing with at least 30 days notice to existing subscribers; price changes apply only to billing cycles after the notice period.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Share your account credentials with others or resell access
• Scrape, copy, or redistribute course content without written permission
• Attempt to hack, disrupt, or reverse-engineer the Platform
• Use Ask Onyx to generate malicious code, exploit instructions, or harmful content
• Harass, threaten, or abuse other community members
• Submit false or misleading information, including in job applications claiming credentials you did not earn
• Use bots or automated tools to inflate XP, completion stats, or other metrics

5. Intellectual Property

All course content, lesson materials, platform code, designs, and branding are owned by CloudPath Academy. Your subscription grants you a personal, non-transferable license to access the content for your own learning. You may not reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works without explicit written permission.

Infrastructure code and projects you build during labs are yours. You are encouraged to include them in your portfolio.

6. Hands-On Labs & AWS Account Use

CloudPath labs are designed to run inside your own AWS Free Tier account. Each lab includes setup steps, expected costs (most labs stay within Free Tier), and explicit teardown instructions. You are solely responsible for any AWS charges incurred in your own account, including charges from forgetting to delete resources after a lesson. CloudPath provides cost-awareness lessons and teardown checklists but cannot directly control or refund charges in your account.

Managed sandbox (where CloudPath provisions the AWS environment for you) — Acceptable Use Policy. When you use a CloudPath-provisioned AWS sandbox, you agree to the following:

• Permitted use: the specific curriculum lab the sandbox was provisioned for, within the IAM permission boundary attached to the session role. No use outside the lab's stated scope.
• Strictly prohibited: cryptocurrency mining, distributed compute marketplaces (BOINC, etc.), commercial workloads, hosting any third-party-accessible service, attack infrastructure (port scanning, DDoS botnets, brute-force, phishing), data exfiltration from any source you do not own, training models on third-party copyrighted data, or any activity prohibited by applicable law or the AWS Acceptable Use Policy.
• Resource limits: per-session spend cap, instance-type allowlist (no GPU / metal instance types), outbound network restricted to lab targets, and an auto-cleanup that nukes session resources at the documented expiry.
• Indemnification: you indemnify and hold CloudPath harmless for any costs, claims, or damages (including AWS overage charges, third-party legal action, and law-enforcement inquiries) arising from your use of the sandbox in violation of this AUP.
• Enforcement: we may immediately terminate any session, suspend the account, and bill the violating user for any AWS charges plus an investigation fee.
• Abuse reports: email security@cloudpathportal.com. We respond to credible reports within 24 hours.

7. Certificates and Credentials

CloudPath Academy certificates are issued upon completion of program requirements. These certificates represent your completion of our curriculum and are not official AWS or vendor certifications. Do not misrepresent CloudPath certificates as official vendor certifications.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Platform is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not guarantee specific career outcomes, salary increases, or job placement. Results depend on individual effort, market conditions, and many factors outside our control.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, CloudPath Academy shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages. Our total liability to you shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim.

10. Termination

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, with or without notice. You may delete your account at any time from your settings page. Upon termination, your access to course content ends immediately.

11. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or the Platform shall first be addressed by good-faith informal negotiation between you and CloudPath. If unresolved within 30 days, disputes shall be resolved through binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, except where prohibited by applicable law.

Small claims carve-out: Either party may bring a qualifying claim in a small claims court (or its equivalent) in the county of the claimant's residence instead of arbitration, provided the claim remains in that court and is not removed or appealed to a court of general jurisdiction.

Right to opt out of arbitration: You may opt out of the arbitration and class-action-waiver provisions by emailing admin@cloudpathportal.com within 30 days of first accepting these terms with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” and your full name + account email in the body. Opting out does not affect any other portion of these terms.

Class action waiver: You and CloudPath agree that any dispute resolution proceedings will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class, consolidated, or representative action. EU/UK consumers retain any non-waivable rights to bring proceedings in the courts of their country of residence.

12. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. We will notify you by email of material changes at least 30 days before they take effect. If you do not agree, you may cancel your subscription before the changes take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

13. Copyright Complaints (DMCA)

CloudPath Academy respects intellectual property rights. If you believe content posted on the Platform infringes your copyright, send a written notice to our designated agent that includes (per 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)):

• Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed.
• Identification of the material you allege is infringing and information sufficient for us to locate it (URL or path on the platform).
• Your contact information (name, address, email, phone).
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
• A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner.
• Your physical or electronic signature.

Designated agent: CloudPath Academy DMCA Agent, dmca@cloudpathportal.com. We acknowledge complete notices within 5 business days and aim to act within 10. Misrepresentation in a DMCA notice may expose you to liability under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

Counter-notification. If your content was removed and you believe the removal was a mistake or misidentification, you may submit a counter-notification to the same address including: identification of the material removed and where it appeared, a statement under penalty of perjury that the removal was a mistake or misidentification, your contact information, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the U.S. district court for your address (or for our principal place of business if outside the U.S.) and will accept service from the original notifier.

Repeat infringer policy. We may suspend or terminate accounts that receive three or more substantiated DMCA notices within any twelve-month period.

14. Contact

Questions? Email admin@cloudpathportal.com.