Cloud computing and the looming global privacy battle

[Commentary] A grave threat is said to be stalking Europe. No, it isn’t the financial crisis and the potential demise of the euro. It’s the “rapacious” U.S. approach to privacy — which portends, for those engaged in the development of cloud architecture, a coming “clash” of privacy laws.

Simply put, the fundamental question about international Internet governance over the next decade is going to be whose law dictates control — and the Europeans are making a bold play to say that the answer is “Europe’s.” This raises a challenge for the private sector and for governments: When the user is a private-sector company, the transition to cloud storage and processing services will create difficult questions over jurisdiction. The globalized nature of the Internet and the distributed nature of cloud architecture suggest the need for a universal set of rules to protect privacy; rules that apply to cloud services everywhere on the network. But there is little reason to be sanguine about the prospects for a satisfactory global privacy regime.

[Chertoff was secretary of homeland security from 2005 to 2009]