Ian Carleton Schaefer, a Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment practice, in the New York office, wrote an article titled "5 Employment Law Considerations When Cloud Computing," with contributions from Michelle Capezza, Brandon C. Ge, Nancy L. Gunzenhauser, and Gregg Settembrino. (Read the full version — subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
What is "the cloud," and what on Earth, pun intended, does cloud computing have to do with employment law?
While many definitions abound, cloud computing at its core is a form of remote electronic data storage, processing and application services that are hosted over the Internet. For data, instead of storing information on a computer or server at an office or place of business, it is stored in the cloud.
As an emerging and disruptive technology, the cloud is a collection of larger servers located elsewhere (e.g., data centers) and maintained by a vendor. The data or application becomes accessible to users anywhere there is an Internet connection. If you've ever used webmail or TurboTax, for example, you've operated in the cloud.
The article is based on the March 2014 edition of Take 5,"Five Employment Law Considerations in 'The Cloud.'”