Adobe deactivates cloud services for Venezuelan accounts due to trade embargo

Adobe has shut down all of its cloud services in Venezuela to comply with Donald Trump’s US presidential order to halt virtually all trade with the country. Venezuelan users can download their data until October 28.

Venezuelans will not be refunded for services they have already paid for: “refunds are also not allowed under the trade embargo,” Adobe writes on a help page. The California-based company says it will resume services as soon as it is “legally permissible to do so,” although there is no end date on the presidential order, so it is unknown when that will be.

The order was issued for “the unlawful usurpation of power by Nicolas Maduro, human rights violations, obstruction of freedom of expression and continued attempts to undermine Juan Guaido’s interim presidency,” the order reads. Human Rights Watch told the Financial Times that such sanctions harm the population more than Maduro and his allies.

Virtually all products Adobe makes are offered in the form of software as a service; so users can only get them in the form of a subscription, with a certain duration. Photoshop, for example, last allowed users of version CS6 from 2012 to obtain a perpetual license. This version is no longer for sale since 2017. Photoshop is now only available with an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, for about 12 euros per month.