Steelie Neelie: One cloud contract model to rule them all

Why just the US?

"But a report commissioned by the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs stated the model contract clauses and binding corporate rules do not prevent US law enforcement agencies accessing that data."

One wonder's whether the Committee on Civil Liberties reads all the papers, the rights of access to data is one that most countries security organisations have (just look at GCHQ) and in many EU countries the controls on such access are often less than those that apply to the US (e.g. Ministerial Orders as opposed to cross party oversight committees).

The reality is that it does not matter where the information is held some govt. is always going to have access to it so we may as well learn to live with it (and make sure we use really strong encryption).

Puzzled

I may be naive but would appreciate a PRACTICAL reason for going to cloud data storage.

Are the cost savings that great? And is the security risk that trivial?

I would have thought that most potential cloud customers could "get away" with a decently specced server, thereby retaining control of their data.

One question remains though..

"One of the big barriers to using cloud computing is a lack of trust," she said. "People don't always understand what they're paying for, and what they can expect."

But is that caused by a lesser degree of competence from these people, or because some Internet based companies can get away with just about everything? Often in the EU, more than often, do you get to see Internet "ghost" firms which will gladly accept your money but won't deliver any services.

And the worst part (though I can only comment on my local situation of Holland): 9 out of 10 cases the police has no or hardly time for cases like this. Especially because it's usually petty theft and resources to trace these culprits would be quite hefty... Over here the latest report surfaced last week: a few Dutch and Belgian people had booked a vacation with an Internet firm, and that firm is now all of a sudden "gone" and so is their money.

So is this about the companies? Or about an, often EU led, government which refuses to give its citizens the protection they're entitled to and basically try to let others deal with all that?

whisper of reason

The main cause is that there ARE contracts: it saves providers the trouble of behaving. They became necessary for phones because providers handed out phones for free - bad idea - and needed to recoup the up-front loss. Contracts are not necessary today, you can buy non-tied phones and services.

There is no need for ties, the inconvenience of switching data to another provider should be sufficient to accept switching without restriction as the normal model for data. And no ties means they might listen a bit to their customers.

Go for it...

Sensible move in my view. There are far too many complex terms and conditions floating around that scare the living daylights out of most, considering movement to the Cloud. The current position also allows bigger players to openly 'bully' clients into shady and protracted deals..