SaaS Agreements – Freedom of Information Act – Disclosure

Last week the Information Tribunal ordered a Government department to publish specific details of a major IT contract with Atos Origin, following an individual’s request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). Pursuant to section 43 of the FOI, the Government body had refused to disclose the material requested on the basis that it was a trade secret and that disclosure would damage the commercial interests of the parties.

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SaaS, ASP Agreements – Liability for Website Content

SaaS suppliers must protect themselves in their SaaS agreement against a third party claiming compensation for breaches of their rights as a result of customers uploading illegal content onto the supplier hosted website. Service Providers and ISPs SaaS suppliers are service providers not internet service providers (ISP)s. SaaS suppliers publish content on the Internet on the websites they are hosting for customers. ISPs simply transmit information on behalf of customers i.e. telecommunications companies like AOL and BT and are acting as “mere conduits“. SaaS suppliers do not check content prior

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SaaS, ASP Agreements – Data Protection Issues with Sub-contractors – Standard Contractual Clauses

Using a sub-contractor to process your SaaS customer data is a problem under data protection law, where the sub-processor is based outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Incorporating EU standard contractual clauses into your SaaS agreement is NOT the solution to this common problem. EU Standard Contractual Clauses Under data protection law personal data may only be transferred to countries outside of the EEA where there is adequate protection. In order to deal with the problem of transfers of personal data from a customer (data controller) in the EEA

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Benefits of SaaS and Cloud Computing

The benefits of SaaS (software as a service) applications to customers are numerous. They include: customer collaboration access anytime/anywhere, no need to install programmes and updates, number of users can be increased or decreased easily more functions and modules can be quickly and easily added reduced need for internal IT saving in professional time Customer Collaboration Often customer portals are included in the SaaS application which enables the customer to share information with its clients. Access Anytime, Anywhere SaaS applications are usually hosted on the software supplier’s servers. This enables

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