Summary
* In the cloud where data is located is not as important as how it is managed
* As people become more dependant on the cloud legal and political issues will arise
* Cloud companies have new revenue streams based on how they manage the cloud and resolve these issues
Analysis
Globetrotting journalist John D. Sutter already takes advantage of the Cloud to manage his business. A professional photographer as well as a technology writer, he stores his work product across Flickr, Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Word Press, Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. This gives him more reason than most to be concerned about the status of his data. To satisfy his professional and personal curiosity, he starts a quixotic quest to track down and visit the physical location of his data. This quest is impractical, extravagant, and doomed from the start.
Sutter is allowed to visit an IBM data center and leaves underwhelmed. For those who have never visited a data center it is a lot like taking a tour of a giant walk in closet built in the cave of the winds. The air, light, and even the floor have an artificiality which can only be found in certain science fiction movies. Wires coil in all direction like a confederation of snakes. The only signs of life are small green blinking lights and a heavy, humid, cold flow of air. Since he has no way of knowing by looking at outside of a device what it actually does everything in a data center has to be accepted on the basis of faith.
Sutter concludes where data is located is not as important as who owns it, who has the right access it, who has the right to delete it, and who is responsible for the loss of data. So far, with the possible exception of Microsoft’s appropriately named Danger division’s loss of T-Mobile Sidekick data the issue has hardly come up, but this can not continue. Some day in the future, perhaps sooner rather than later, some vendor is going to delete or more likely lose data that millions of people value highly and now think of as their own. This is likely to create an immense controversy that can be only resolved by the government. Legislators and regulators will have to have to work out on a societal wide basis what the rights and responsibilities people have over data hosted in the cloud.
The article also begins to suggest future revenue streams for companies in the cloud. Right now Mr. Sutter does not pay for any of the services he uses so his rights are very limited. Would he pay more to own the legal title to the photographs he posts in Flicker? Would he pay Facebook to backup his profile? Would he pay YouTube to permanently delete an embarrassing video? The answer is yes he would and someday he may have to pay for all these services and more.
