Cyber Times International Journal of Technology & Management

Cloud Computing service providers provide servers for hire to consumers and businesses. These servers perform a wide variety of fully automated services such as storage, computing, content delivery, database management, etc. depending on the needs of the customer. Businesses are trying to make the most of this new paradigm shift of resource sharing. However, due to lack of regulatory provisions and operational restrictions,  cloud providers and users face various challenges. Unless these current and anticipated difficulties are not arrested, computing business cannot flourish and reap benefits. For suitability and sustainability of cloud in India, crafting a standard regulation to monitor the contractual relationship between service providers and users is called for.

The paper is organized into six sections. The first part gives a brief introduction about the cloud ecosystem and benefits of deploying this technology. The second part explains the residuary provisions scattered under different Legislation that can be said to govern cloud vendors and users. The third part elucidates the obligations to be performed by the cloud providers as intermediaries and the penalties lay down under the IT Law. The fourth part focuses on the penalties imposed on cloud vendors under different jurisdictions. The next part discusses the Consultation paper released by TRAI that dispensed valuable information from industry analysis and other policy documents issued by the Government. It highlights the keys  concerns faced by the policy makers around the world. The Conclusions & Recommendations are in the last part.