Citation[]
Bureau of Industry and Security, January 11, 2011 Advisory Opinion on the Issue of Cloud Computing and Deemed Exports (Jan. 11, 2011) (full-text).
Overview[]
This Advisory Opinion considered whether cloud computing service providers need to “obtain deemed export licenses for foreign national information technology (‘IT’) administrators who service and maintain their cloud computing systems.” BIS made the distinction between the providers and users of cloud services, stating that “the service of providing computational capacity through grid or cloud computing is not subject to the EAR, since the service provider is not shipping or transmitting any commodity, software, or technology subject to the EAR to the user.” The Advisory Opinion then notes that “[b]ecause the service provider is not an ‘exporter,’” the company providing the cloud services “would not be making a ‘deemed export’ if a foreign national network administrator monitored or screened, as described above, user-generated technology subject to the EAR.”