Does a cloud service provider need a licence?

No. The supply of information-society services is not subject to licensing, permission or authorisation. The only exceptions are activities that other legislation places under licensing or permission regimes — these require separate analysis.

Is a cloud provider responsible for client content?

Only under certain conditions. When storing a recipient's information, an intermediary service provider is not responsible for it if it lacks actual knowledge of the illegality, or if upon obtaining such knowledge it immediately removes the information or restricts access to it.

Must the provider monitor content?

No. Imposing on an intermediary service provider an obligation to monitor transmitted or stored information, or to take active measures to detect unlawful actions, is prohibited. But compliance with a concrete request of an authorised organ — for example, supplying recipient identification data — is mandatory.

Where do I dispute with a provider?

On a breach the recipient of services may apply to the agency, and this right does not deprive it of applying to a court or arbitration or of mediation. Contractual terms cannot cancel these state guarantees.

Cloud Services Agreements in Tbilisi, Georgia

About this service

Cloud services — the storage, processing and delivery of data and applications on remote infrastructure — are a standard business tool. Legally, however, this relationship stands at the intersection of two different regimes: on the one hand, a cloud service is a contractual relationship between a service provider and a recipient; on the other, where the provider stores or transmits information, it acquires the status of an intermediary service provider, which creates its own legal regime. Georgian law has no separate statute for cloud services; they are governed by the intermediary-services chapter of the law on electronic commerce together with the general norms of contract. This service builds the drafting and review of cloud agreements on precisely the correct connection of those two regimes.

Cloud service without a licence

Article 3 of the law on electronic commerce provides that the supply of information-society services is not subject to licensing, permission or authorisation. Offering a cloud service as such therefore requires no state permit — market entry is free. This rule does not, however, extend to activities that other legislative acts place under licensing, permission or authorisation regimes: where a cloud solution touches such a sphere, the corresponding regime must be analysed separately. The absence of a licence requirement does not mean a legal vacuum — on the contrary, the quality and terms of the service are shaped entirely by the contract.

Hosting — the cloud provider's principal regime

The exemption from liability is drawn most clearly in the hosting norm: when storing a recipient of services' information, an intermediary service provider is not responsible for the stored information provided one of the following conditions exists: it has no actual knowledge of unlawful activity or information — and where a claim for damages is brought, it does not know the facts or circumstances from which the unlawful activity or information becomes apparent; or, upon obtaining actual knowledge of unlawful activity or information, it immediately removes the unlawful information or restricts access to it. For a cloud provider this is the basic legal framework of the business: responsibility for stored client content arises only where the provider knows of the illegality and fails to react. The exemption does not extend to cases where the recipient of the intermediary service acts in the name of the service provider, or where the provider manages the recipient.

Cloud Services Agreements