I attended and spoke at the 3rd Cloud Computing conference today, and here are a few points to take-home:

• Pay attention to governing law clauses (which law applies) and dispute resolution procedures (how do we resolve disputes), particularly for cloud service providers whose customers are worldwide;
• Limitations of liability in the context of the “public cloud” are critical. These clauses can be upheld if drafted clearly and carefully, but they will be struck down if they are unclear, or if there are overriding public policy reasons. 
• If you are a cloud-service user, and your use of cloud services involves the hosting of personal information (for example, information of your own end-customers), consider this: if one of those customers withdraws consent to the use of his or her personal information, do you have a protocol in place to track that withdrawal back through the cloud service provider, to the host who may be holding the data?

 

For a copy of my paper, please email me.

Calgary – 12:30 MDT