From the Computer Utility to Cloud Computing - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 59

inluenced global energy-resource markets for many years. Before long,
it may be time to think seriously about the implications of a global cartel
in information resources. As in oil, such a cartel would provide for the
needs of organizations and individuals, using control over various stages
in the production and distribution process that powers global capitalism
to expand proit and control. Just as in oil or other global commodity
markets, there will be small- and medium-sized producers who, from
time to time, disrupt the system. Geopolitical upheavals and technologi-
cal change will also have an impact. In short, cloud computing is rapidly
becoming a powerful force in the world because of the quantitative and
qualitative leap in information production, processing, storage, and distri-
bution, and because of the way the cloud is evolving into a global, private
oligopoly, well on the way to becoming a global cartel. It is also interesting
to observe the ways that some of the companies making up what might
become a cartel are beginning to internalize the appropriate identity for
this new role. Consider Google, whose founder, Eric Schmidt, now talks
about the need for the company and its competitors to start thinking
of themselves as nations, especially when it comes to dispute resolution:
“The adult way to run a business is to run it more like a country. They
have disputes, yet they've actually been able to have huge trade with each
other. They're not sending bombs at each other.... I think both Tim
[Cook, Apple's CEO] and Larry [Page, Google's CEO], the sort of suc-
cessors to Steve [Jobs] and me if you will, have an understanding of this
state model” (Lessin 2012).
Schmidt may take this view more seriously than people think. In Janu-
ary 2013 he came under some pretty harsh criticism from the U.S. State
Department for traveling to North Korea to meet with its leadership in a
round of private diplomacy unsanctioned by the U.S. government. Citing
U.S. concerns about a North Korean rocket launch one month earlier,
a State Department spokesperson commented, “Frankly, we don't think
the timing of this is particularly helpful.” Moreover, “They are travel-
ing in an unoficial capacity. They are not going to be accompanied by
any U.S. oficials. They are not carrying any messages from us. They are
private citizens and they are making their own decisions.” Coming from
the agency responsible for American diplomacy, these are pretty strong
words about a prominent U.S. citizen (Gordon 2013; see also Schmidt
and Cohen 2013).