7. The role of regulation in cloud computing
Consumers and businesses today not only own their data, but they also control how that data is physically housed. The distributed nature of cloud computing alters many notions about residency and ownership of data and information. In converting to cloud computing, companies are essentially handing over their data to third-party service providers, who store and process such data in the cloud [27] and whose physical location could be anywhere in the world. This could potentially be a problem. For example, if some private data is stored in a country other than its owner, which country's privacy laws would be followed by the cloud's parent organization? Issues like these make it necessary for an active and informed role of national and international regulatory agencies. Some progress has already been made in this area through the development of US-EU Safe Harbor laws, but more needs to be done. As of now, providers like Amazon Web Services make sure that they comply with local laws through local infrastructure, and allowing their customers to select their “availability zones”.