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Government meddling could "chop cloud into pieces"

By Reuters and Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 22 Feb 2012 at 09:14

Government policies in some countries pose a threat to cloud computing, according to a US report.

The Business Software Alliance found that Brazil, China and India had flawed policies, but also took aim at developed countries such as Germany.

The industry mouthpiece said Brazil finished last in its survey of 24 countries, earning only 35.1 points out a possible 100 because of its policies in areas such as free trade, security, data privacy and cybercrime.

India, which has the world's second-largest software industry after the United States, and China, whose information and communications technology sector is expected to nearly double to $389 billion by 2015, were also in the bottom six, with scores of 50.0 and 47.5, respectively.

The UK was ranked seventh out of the 24 countries, with a score of 76.6 in a report highlighting what the BSA called a need for greater harmony on laws affecting cloud services.

There are concerns that Germany, for example, wants to put a wall around the country to limit the provision of cloud services to companies that are located in Germany

Without greater coordination of government policies, "the cloud could be chopped into little pieces,” said Robert Holleyman, BSA president, adding that the situation reduced the efficiency that comes from being able to move data and software services freely across borders.

The 24 countries included in the survey represent 80% of the global information and communications technology industry. They were scored in seven areas, which also included intellectual property protection, infrastructure and support for industry-led standards to help data flow smoothly.

Japan was ranked highest with 83.3 points. It was followed closely by other developed countries including Australia, Germany, the United States, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and South Korea, which all scored in the high 70s.

European protection

But Holleyman cautioned that protective measures from EU countries could harm the industry, or at least US involvement.

"There are concerns that Germany, for example, wants to put a wall around the country to limit the provision of cloud services to companies that are located in Germany."

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User comments

BS

The biggest problem for cloud services, currently, is the USA and the Patriot Act. The US Government are the biggest blocker to companies with US offices taking part in cloud services, outside the USA.

In the EU, the owner of the data is responsible for seeing that the data is secured and not given to third parties, without either a court document or the approval of those whose personal data is affected.

However, the US Government can force the cloud provider to hand over any data, if they have an office in the USA, without following due process.

The cloud provider is also not allowed to inform the data owner, that they have given their data onto a third party (US Gov.).

This leaves the data owner open to prosecution and private law suits, for "allowing" personal information to be exported outside the EU, without getting the written permission of those whose data has been released to the US Government.

As to the German ring-fence, they have just dismantled it, as it is unconstitutional.

They had set it up to "protect" German citizens from child pornography sites, in a similar way to the SOCA (UK) and ICE (USA) did with the pirate sites recently.

The courts however looked at the matter and determined that the German authorities had overstepped their mark and had acted unconstitutionally. The blocks are down and they are now looking at going after the source and actually getting the sites taken down and prosecuting the site owners.

By big_D on 22 Feb 2012

Typical head-in-the-sand attitude

that completely ignores the problem of legal *jurisdiction*. Even if the laws of every country were exactly the same, using a cloud service which stores data in a legal jurisdiction other than your own means submitting to considerable extra and unnecessary risk from legal *process*.

Most of the T&Cs I've read say that the cloud provider will "cooperate with law enforcement" with no guarantees about due process or limitation of which countries' "law enforcement".

For these reasons the business model of globalised cloud providers is fatally flawed and a legal disaster waiting to happen.

By JohnAHind on 22 Feb 2012

BS is right

“European Union countries scored well, but what's happening now in the EU is lawmakers and regulators are effectively putting their thumbs on the scale in ways that will make it difficult for non- European firms to compete," he said.
No. That will make it difficult for non-compliant firms to compete. The fact that firms outside the EU disregard consumer protection is the underlying issue.

By dubiou on 22 Feb 2012

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