The blogosphere reacts: are Google's databarges silly or serious?

There's been a lot of reaction around the web to our story yesterday that Google is planning offshore data-centres - filing a patent for an idea to deploy their supercomputers on barges anchored up to seven miles offshore.

My personal favourites included (not at all hysterical) headliness which welcomed Google's computer navy like:

If Google was Iran, wouldn’t we be scared right now?

And the irrepressible Gawker blog, which commented:

Christ Jesus in holy Heaven, a computer navy? Is this the part when mankind finally goes up against the massive computer armies run amok? Don't worry: you have nothing to fear except a massive flotilla of untouchable Google supercomputers not accountable to any nation on earth.

Many other commenters have a few more serious concerns. Techdirt writes:

even though the idea as proposed may be silly, what if someone else could make something similar work? Do we want a single company to have the exclusive right to attempt something like this? The patent system is supposed to promote progress, not be an anchor dragging it down.

Which is a fair point. If the idea could actually be made to work - one that could in theory cut down on the massive carbon emissions created by the world's data centres - why should Google be the only one that can do it?

Others point out, quite rightly, that as the patent stands, there is no plan to have the barges further than 7 miles offshore, and so well within the jurisdiction of many states. But it remained unclear if Google could simply re-anchor elsewhere, beyond the jurisdiction of a state, at a later date. I wanted to put these questions to Google myself, but alas, they weren't taking any questions on the subject, telling us:

at this time we have nothing to announce regarding this specific technology.

So speculation will continue to run rife, and unfortunately, no clarification is upcoming. Sorry.

But it's an idea that's come from the bowels of the Googleplex, so deserves some attention. Only a matter of time before we find out whether it's silly or serious.

Comments

[Woodrow]

If the barges are outside the jurisdiction of the United States, the patent doesn't work either, Google has no particular edge; anybody can but a barge out there

[Menocar]

Has anyone considered the old adages of breaching the firewall, or breaching the system security? It now has a whole new meaning. I'm talking about pirates, subs, ships and aircraft now have access to these huge databases. Just how hard would it be for any entity be it private or government to breach the physical security of a ship and play hell with the databases? Eh?

[AJ]

Its an fantastic idea but considering the safety of personal information, should be very careful..Since Google is a private company only..Google should protect ship from the attacks!!...And the energy requirement will be very high for maintaining also transportation costs will be high...But seems to be great idea...But patenting will not work for this idea....

[Elizabeth]

And what will happen when the next hurricane strikes?