A Legal Perspective of the Cloud

The Cloudcast - Eps.30 - "Laws in the Cloud" mp3

Date: February 3, 2012

By: Aaron Delp and Brian Gracely

Description: Brian talks with Adrienne Mead (@CloudAtty) and Deborah Salons (@dsalons) about legal policy, contracts and what business should consider when using or building Cloud Computing services.

DISCLAIMER – This Cloudcast does not represent legal advice, should not be used as a substitute for legal advice in any particular circumstances.  As usual, your mileage, and your company’s legal analysis, may vary. This Cloudcast is not intended to, and does not, create an attorney client relationship between any of the participants and any listeners, past, present and future.

Topic 1 - Generally, how are cloud computing issues being addressed by the legal community? From the legal perspective what is the current tone?  

Topic 2 - What rights do various government agencies have to data stores in public services? Example: MegaUpload case - The Death of Cloud Services

Topic 3 - What can companies do to protect themselves from shared storage arrays being seized by government agencies that hold data from potential criminal activities?

Topic 4 - How can I know where my data is located, especially if there are concerns that it may have moved (potentially out of country)?

Topic 5 - What recourse do companies have if they believe their data have been compromised/view/sold/shared without their permission by an SP?

Topic 6 - Have any precedents been set by companies suing SPs that lost data or dropped service to recuperate "lost business", not just SLA repayment? (see Brian’s blog on Cloud Insurance).

Topic 7 - What should we know that we don’t already know?  What guidance would you give IT technologies to make sure they are aware of legal aspects that will impact their environments, now and into the future?