Legal Ethics of Facebook, Twitter & Cloud Computing #ABAChicago
The legal ethics challenges that will be posed by lawyer use of Facebook, Twitter and other forms of “cloud computing” services are almost as revolutionary as the services themselves, according to experts speaking at a discussion hosted Sunday by the Cyberspace Law Committee of the ABA Business Law Section.
Cloud computing services store a user’s data—messages, photos, documents or any other kind of information—on a computer that is not under the user’s control. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Google Docs are all examples of the growing trend, which is sometimes also referred to as “software as a service.”
The services allow users to access information from any computer connected to the Internet and to share that information either with a limited number of people or the public at large. They are quickly gaining popularity among lawyers and the clients they serve, both for their technological benefits and low cost, as reported in the August issue of the ABA Journal.
But lawyers should carefully consider the legal ethics implications of that trend, according to Roland L. Trope, a partner in New York City’s Trope and Schramm.
He noted there’s a dramatic difference between what Google Docs—a service for creating and sharing text documents, spreadsheets and slide presentations—says in its marketing materials, and what is in its legally binding terms of service.
When promoting the service, Google says it backs up users’ information almost as fast as they create it, so users always have access to their saved content. But the terms of service say Google does not guarantee any defects in the product will be fixed, and the company reserves the right to disable a user’s account without providing copies of the data the user has stored on Google’s computers.
And because many cloud computer companies don’t store a user’s data in one location, or even in one country, what will happen when information from a client that is subject to U.S. export control restrictions is stored on a computer in a foreign country, Trope asked. Firms ought to disclose to clients how their data will be stored, so issues like this can be dealt with before they become a crisis, he said.
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