Paper short abstract:

CC presents serious ethical and political problems related to its nature as an inherently political technology. It is becoming in fact a political constitution. The discussion on CC has to do with which values we are willing to support, and the society we want to be.

Paper long abstract:

Cloud computing (CC) is a revolutionary development in IT, and a new sociotechnical paradigm that theoretically empowers users, but also presents serious ethical and political problems that have to be addressed. This paper argues that such problems have to do mainly with the very nature of cloud computing as an inherently political technology (a technology that is strongly compatible with certain model of social organization). We argue in this paper that CC is an inherently political technology in the strong sense (it requires a set of political and social requirements to properly function). Once fundamental decisions are taken, changing the sign of its social impact will be extremely difficult.

Even dominant corporate agents are vulnerable to a power shift in favor of the States. CC services providers and big data companies are under pressure for several reason (national security, law enforcement, war on terrorism, defense of national values, protection of free trade, etc.) to play an instrumental role in these policies. They can also act as cultural and political battering rams (convergence of interests between the state and the Companies). We don't have to wait to a global implementation to forecast its impact on society. CC is in fact a political constitution. The discussion on CC has to do with which values we are willing to support, and the society we want to be. As CC extends the power of technology to more areas of human activity, citizens should be considered as stakeholders. Post-implementation changes won't be very effective.