Appeared in the Toronto Star on November 13, 2011 as Internet belongs to us, U.S. argues The U.S. Congress is currently embroiled in a heated debated over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), proposed legislation that supporters argue is needed combat online infringement, but critics fear would create the “great […]
Abandoned border by mtsrs (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/49aR7g
Jurisdiction
Location Matters Up in the Cloud
Amazon is best known for its e-commerce site, yet it is also one of the world’s leading cloud computing providers, offering instant website hosting to thousands of companies and websites. In recent years, the combination of massive computer server farms in remote locations and high speed networks have enabled cloud computing to emerge as a critical mechanism for offering online services and delivering Internet content.
After Amazon pulled the plug, Wikileaks quickly shifted to a European host, demonstrating how easily sites can shift from one cloud provider to another. Although it seems counter-intuitive to consider the physical location of cloud computing equipment when discussing services that by their very definition operate across borders in the “cloudâ€, the Wikileaks-Amazon incident provided an important reminder that location matters when it comes to cloud computing.
Location Matters Up in the Cloud
Appeared in the Toronto Star on December 5, 2010 as Location Matters Up in the Cloud The Wikileaks disclosure of hundreds of U.S. diplomatic cables dominated news coverage last week as governments struggled to respond to public disclosure of sensitive, secret information. One of the most noteworthy developments was Amazon’s […]
U.S. Uses Domain Names As New Way to Regulate the Net
Domain names are widely used to ensure that email is delivered to the right inbox or to allow users to access a particular website. The system includes a large database that matches the domain name (e.g. michaelgeist.ca) to a specific IP address (i.e. the location of the computer server). The system is used billions of times every day to route Internet traffic to its intended destination.
As every Internet user knows, inadvertently entering the wrong email or web address typically means that the email bounces back or takes the user to an unexpected destination. As my weekly technology law column notes (Toronto Star version, homepage version), legislators have now begun to consider the possibility of intentionally stopping access to certain sites by ordering Internet providers to block access to their domain names.
U.S. Uses Domain Names As New Way to Regulate the Net
Appeared in the Toronto Star on September 27, 2010 as U.S. Uses Domain Names As New Way to Regulate the Net Governments have long sought ways to regulate Internet activity, whether for the purposes of taxation, content regulation, or the application of national laws. Effective regulatory measures have often proven […]
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