Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 151

practices are particularly worrisome because of the country's strong com-
mitment to become a world leader in cloud computing, as evidenced by
its plan to construct the world's largest data centers, build entire cities
around cloud facilities, and spread the cloud across the country, all part of
a program to more than double its cloud data center capacity by 2016 with
a government investment of $370 billion. Moreover, China has welcomed
big names in the cloud to help achieve this goal. By 2013 IBM already had
three large cloud facilities up and running in the country (J. Lee 2013a).
Although most of its data center capacity will be used for domestic
civilian and military data, there is little doubt that China will want to
proit from its investment by offering data storage, processing, and other
cloud services to foreign companies operating within and even outside its
borders. The country has already demonstrated that its low-cost production
model has been overwhelmingly successful in luring foreign companies to
use it as the foundation of global supply chains. With massively increased
cloud capacity, China will most likely be in a position to offer a low-cost
alternative for Western companies looking to beat the competition for
new cloud customers. Given that it is common practice for the Chinese
government to monitor the online activities of its own citizens and to
engage in spying and hacking practices on computers in the United States
and elsewhere, it should come as no surprise that iles stored in cloud data
centers in its territory would be routinely inspected, copied, and used.
Dark clouds over China will likely grow in the coming years as it chal-
lenges the United States for world leadership in cloud computing. For now,
however, the United States is well ahead of the pack, and it is important
to focus on problems that this presents for its own citizens and for people
beyond its borders. Electronic privacy is a problem in the United States
not just because hackers from abroad are stealing secrets but, more impor-
tantly, because the country has some of the weakest privacy protections in
the developed world, certainly weaker than those of the European Union
(EU) or Canada. There are several reasons for this, but the primary one
that American policy makers will point to is the need to balance the right
to privacy with the nation's need for security, particularly in the wake of
the 9/11 attacks and the ensuing struggles against terrorism. We will get
to the security side of this issue shortly, but it is also important to point
out that weak privacy protections have made for a strong IT industry,
particularly as social-media irms have built world-dominant companies