You may recall a previous post about the Law of Cloud Computing, here. In this month's post on LLRX, Tanya Forsheit explores the issue of privacy in the cloud. Forsheit's major contention is that the degree of privacy that one can expect in the cloud depends on the location in which the data is being accessed. For example, the EU has very tightly controlled privacy rights to electronic data. But if someone is accessing your information from the United States, even though it was entered from an EU country, your expectation of privacy might not be reasonable. As Forsheit says -
In the world of the cloud, location appears to be irrelevant. In the cloud, data effortlessly flows around the globe, ignoring boundaries and time zones, and magically appears on demand. Not surprisingly, the existing legal structure is far from prepared for the reality of existing technology. Every jurisdiction has its own laws, and its own compliance requirements. As that data instantaneously circumnavigates the globe, it may already be too late to comply with privacy laws in every jurisdiction.
Is your data input on OpenOffice private? Protection might hinge on that user agreement that you clicked through when you opened your OpenOffice account. This might be a good time to review that agreement...
