On October 20, 2011, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published “the final release of Special Publication 800-145, The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing” (SP 800-145). To quote from SP 800-145, “cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources [examples given] that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. The NIST document contains further definitions of a number of relatively new terms such as: software as a service (SaaS), private cloud, public cloud and hybrid cloud. The goal of the NIST, in publishing the definitions, is to give users a baseline for public discussion and to encourage the better use of cloud services. Almost contemporaneously with the NIST publication, a one-day conference, “Cloudlaw: Law & Policy in the Cloud”, was held at the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy (Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) on October 14, 2011. Synopses of two of the sessions (on jurisdiction and competition/intellectual property, respectively) are now on the Centre’s web site here and here. Summary by: Richard Potter

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