Legal Research

Legal Implications of Cloud Computing

By jlutz99

Excellent post on cloud computing from InformationLawGroup.  Here's an excerpt:

Terrific, so how is this any different than a typical outsourcing relationship?  Why is this a Cloud? One of the key differences between a traditional outsourcing relationship and cloud computing is where the data resides or is processed.  For example, in the traditional outsourcing situation, a company looking to offload some of its data storage would create a dedicated data center and then sell the storage capacity to its clients.  The data center might be in another country, but for the most part the client knew where its data was going and where it would be stored and processed.

Enter the cloud.  In a cloud environment, geography can lose all meaning.  Cloud platforms may not be able to tell "where" data is at any given point in time.  Data may be dispersed across and stored in multiple data centers all over the world.  In fact, use of a cloud platform can result in multiple copies of data being stored in different locations.  This is true even for a "private cloud" that is essentially run by a single entity.  What this also means is that data in the cloud is often transferred across multiple borders, which (as discussed below) can have significant legal implications.

Read the whole article here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on July 21, 2010 (boomark / email).