Cloud Computing has been with us for five or so years; its the computer's world equivalent of off-shoring. First we had the call centres (a lot of which have since returned to mainland Europe from India); then we had people off-shoring with companies relocating to where they could gain a competitive tax advantage like Dubai, Dublin or Delhi and now we have the whole infrastructure on the move with servers and their ilk physically moving "off-shore".
This is happening without much public debate and with the connivance of Governments keen to keep public sector costs down.
There are though a number of issues which need proper public debate:
** who owns our Intellectual Property? Do we own it or has been taken over by the likes of Google and Facebook? Does anyone care?
** what legislature would we sue in if our NHS notes were leaked?
** where would the citizen take their complaint to? Which court and where?
** should we know what is being off-shored by our own Government?
We appear to be sleep-walking into cloud computing because it is the cheapest option but don't we have rights too?