Court on cloud computing: ignorance is no excuse.

• Position: CLOUD - Brief article

A recent ruling in the case Brown v. Tellermate Holdings, Ltd. should serve as an excellent reminder that organizations using cloud computing (and their attorneys) are expected to understand the way cloud computing works, especially during e-discovery.

This became abundantly clear when the plaintiffs requested that Tellermate produce documents from the cloud-based application Salesforce.com. Tellermate objected, stating that it didn't possess or control the data maintained in the cloud database and that the data belonged to Salesforce. Apparently Tellermate and ' its attorneys failed to check their agreement with Salesforce.com, which clearly stated that Tellermate had access to the data and, in fact, retained ownership of it.

The court not only denied Tellermate's objection, it went on to question whether the data had been properly preserved. It turned out that when an employee separated from the company, Tellermate deactivated or reassigned access to the database account. That meant the data input by the plaintiffs had remained accessible and...