“Cloud Innovation and the Law: Issues, Approaches, and Interplay,” authored by Berkman Center Executive Director and Harvard Law School Professor of Practice Urs Gasser, draws from and builds upon previous contributions by the author and his collaborators from the Berkman Center’s cloud computing initiative.
Using cloud computing as a lens, the paper seeks to distill higher-level insights about regulation of emerging technologies in digitally networked environments. It starts by introducing and framing cloud computing as both a technological innovation and innovation-enabling technology – in short: cloud innovation. The paper then explores how the legal and regulatory system interacts with cloud computing by identifying, clustering, and analyzing reactions from the legal and regulatory systems in response to the emergence of cloud computing. It ends with general observations regarding the design of interfaces - technical, organizational, and human - between innovative and innovation-enabling technologies, like cloud computing, and the legal and regulatory system.
About the Cloud Computing Project
Since 2010, the Berkman Center has engaged in research and activities focused on understanding emerging issues and trends related to cloud computing. Led by Executive Director and Harvard Law School Professor of Practice, Urs Gasser, this initiative seeks to identify and evaluate the challenges and opportunities associated with cloud computing, with a particular focus on the technological, social, legal, and market contexts that shape it.
More information can be found on the project's website.