Amazon's ignominious dumping of Wikileaks has not gone unnoticed by other customers.
While Amazon said that Wikileaks had violated the terms of service so it was justified in denying service, the action has caused a number of customers to take a second look at the terms of their service level agreements – entirely understandable given that there are currently no recognised standards to define how and when a cloud service provider can choose to make such a decision.
Joseph Reger, chief technology officer for Fujitsu Technology Solutions, considers the issue to be so important that he has gone on record warning customers of the risks they face.
He has advised customers considering moving to the cloud to look very closely at the service level agreement they are signing.
Time will tell whether we see the introduction of regulations, codes of practice and perhaps even news laws governing the world of cloud computing.
In the meantime, Louise Handley, a partner at law firm Lee & Priestley, said customers, for their part, should recognise that they remain well-placed to protect themselves. As the data controller, the customer should be calling the shots, she said.
Louise Handley discusses the impact of Amazon's decision to dump Wikileaks. Watch the video at computerweekly.com