Google and Microsoft are two of the more visible companies that are pushing the cloud computing frontier.  There are several advantages to computing in the cloud; your files are available from whatever computer you’re on as long as you have a network connection, you don’t have to worry about backups, etc.  There is a downside to the cloud though.

Basically cloud computing is using applications for productivity that live on the internet, not on the computer you’re working on.  Google Docs and Microsoft’s soon to be released internet based version of it’s flagship product Office are modern examples of cloud computing, but really any webmail (gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc) could loosely be referred to as a cloud application.

My biggest concerns has always been privacy.  Your email, financial information, business contacts, etc are all saved on a third party companies servers.  There is always the possibility that there could be a security breach from the inside, or someone uses the password reset feature (these are sometimes very insecure) and gains access to your information.  What if the service is interrupted or you can’t log in or something goes missing, who can you call to fix it?

Right now, go to google.com and search for a phone number to contact someone at google if you have questions about your gmail account.  Don’t worry, I’ll wait…

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The fact is there’s no one to call if something goes wrong.

Lifehacker had a post the other day that summed up my concerns very succinctly.  Click below to check out the entire post.

http://lifehacker.com/5325169/the-hidden-risks-of-cloud-computing

[Photo by  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomraven/]