I agree with most of the positives you gave in favor of cloud-computing. So my question, as an old debate coach taught me, is whether you can also lay out for us the negatives. The dangers in fact and how to safely operate within that framework.

There’s still a lingering, Orwellian feel to “cloud” computing that troubles me — some irrational fear of “information harvesting” or “information hijacking?” Not sure what it is that still hangs me up, but maybe you do and might talk about it in a future column?

Where security of data has always been one of the most important goals in IT, companies don’t seem to care to give it up, if it is for a fancy buzzword.

All the confusion what “Cloud Computing” really means aside – one thing is absolutely clear: if you use it, all data you give to the cloud isn’t your data anymore.
You can’t know where it is, you can’t know who has access, you can’t know what happens with it. You can’t even make sure that data is gone if you delete it. Even Google (who claims stricter policies than most other “cloud”-companies) states that deleted data may remain up to 3 weeks “in the cloud” (whatever that means, like I explained above).

All that stands between your data, its security, its privacy and its existence is a 10 – 1000 lines privacy agreement. A legal necessity, nothing more and nothing less.

So: if you want to get your data out without knowing what happens to it, send it in the cloud!