Jun 28, 2008

CLOUD COMPUTING services and "small print" terms of service

GOOGLE... Cloud Computing.......
As you all saw in my latest presentation (available) ; it has a lot about "CLOUD COMPUTING" and how the METAweb and SaaS will take over. But, after reading material from Butler's Richard Edwards, I realized that we might be far from where we want to be.
He pointed out the following in Google's Term of Service Web Site

4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.
4.4 You acknowledge and agree that if Google disables access to your account, you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your account details or any files or other content which is contained in your account

This means that email and other services that most of us use "could be denied" or "stopped permanently".
Imagine all the content of those accounts in gmail, blogs, YouTube, etc !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope this will be changed and more and more "cloud computing" suppliers will take responsibility for the quality of services they provide.

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