[Infowarrior] - Pew study: cloud computing popular, privacy worries linger

[Richard Forno]

(Report link: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/262/report_display.asp)

Pew study: cloud computing popular, privacy worries linger

By Julian Sanchez | Published: September 14, 2008 - 05:55PM CT

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080914-pew-cloud-computing-study-debuts-at-google-event-in-progress.html

A new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life project, released  
Friday morning at Google's Washington, DC headquarters, finds cloud  
computing applications taking off among Internet users. But  
respondents also told pollsters that they have profound concerns about  
ways their personal data might be used—among them, the kind of ad- 
targeting practiced by... Google.

As Internet users increasingly find themselves using multiple  
(potentially incompatible) networked devices to get online from a  
variety of locations, it should come as little surprise that large  
numbers of them are availing themselves of "cloud" services that  
offload computing or data storage functions to someone else's server,  
allowing e-mail, photos, or documents to be accessed anywhere. More  
than half of Internet users have used Web-based e-mail services, which  
study author John Horrigan called the "starter drug" of cloud  
computing, while just over a third have stored personal photos on  
sites like Flickr or Photobucket. Cloud apps like Google Documents and  
Adobe Photoshop Express were third most popular, with 29 percent of  
respondents saying they'd used one, while fewer than 10 percent had  
used Web-based services to store personal videos or back up their hard  
drives. All told, 69 percent of users had used at least one form of  
cloud computing; 40 percent had used two or more. For users under 30,  
those numbers jumped to 87 percent and 59 percent respectively.

Perhaps more surprising is that 68 percent of respondents who said  
they'd used cloud services declared that they would be "very"  
concerned, and another 19 percent at least "somewhat" concerned, if  
their personal data were analyzed to provide targeted advertising.   
This, of course, is precisely what many Web mail services, such as  
Google's own Gmail, do—which implies that at least some of those who  
profess to be "very" concerned about the practice are probably  
nevertheless subjecting themselves to it. Practices like the selling  
of files to third parties and the use of personal photos or other data  
in marketing campaigns were almost universally condemned, while only  
49 percent of cloud app users said they would be "very" concerned if  
an online service turned over private files at the request of a law  
enforcement agency.

Cloud Computing Event at Google DC Author Horrigan was joined at  
Google's DC offices by a panel of commentators who highlighted some of  
the policy challenges raised by the growing popularity of cloud  
computing services. Ari Schwartz of the Center for Democracy and  
Technology pointed out that courts have traditionally refused to  
recognize any Fourth Amendment privacy interest in information turned  
over to third-party institutions, such as banks. Schwartz warned that  
as "cloud" storage of personal data and documents becomes more  
prevalent, this formal distinction would dilute privacy protections  
unless courts took steps to "bring the Fourth Amendment into the 21st  
century." He also suggested that, in addition to site-specific   
privacy controls, cloud providers work to implement "meta-controls"  
that woul allow users to set uniform privacy preferences for all their  
data, across a range of sites.

Michael Nelson, formerly director of technology policy at the FCC,  
compared cloud computing in 2008 to the Web in 1993, predicting that  
it the cloud model would come to be regarded as "important as the Web  
was 15 years ago." But he called public policy the "rate limiting  
step" in technological progress, and warned of the need to  
"futureproof" policy. Nelson, who before his stint at the FCC advised  
Al Gore on telecom infrastructure and e-commerce issues at the Office  
of Science and Technology Policy, declared himself a "cyberlibertarian  
Democrat" who had learned that "government has an almost unlimited  
capacity to screw things up when they can't see the future—which none  
of us can." The best policy, he  suggested, is therefore for  
government to lead by example: Nelson cited the decision to create a  
White House Web site linking to the sites of other agencies—whether  
they had one ready or not—as among the most important policy choices  
made during his time in the Clinton administration.

One of those myriad ways government might screw things up, suggested  
Salesforce.com public policy VP Daniel Burton, would be to yield to  
protectionist impulses by imposing data export restrictions. Domestic  
industry, he suggested, might be tempted to seek limits on the  
transfer of information overseas—perhaps in the guise of consumer  
protection or privacy regulation—which would function as a non-tarriff  
trade barrier.

Horrigan, for his part, observed that the viability of the cloud model  
going forward would depend in significant part on its adaptability to  
mobile computing. That, in turn, would depend on a spectrum policy  
designed to enable ubiquitous wireless broadband connectivity— 
something lawmakers appear to have deemed less important than ensuring  
we can all watch HD reruns of House on broadcast television.