An “edge case” is an example of something that while unlikely, can definitely happen. We use the internet under all the terms of service of our providers, but rarely consider how this could become a liability. Here are some unlikely, yet possible cases to consider.
Provider stores your data in another country and therefore your data is now subject to their laws. You may become legally liable if you store content that is legal in your country, but illegal in the country where the data is stored. For instance, you are a journalist who makes a video about authoritarianism and political corruption in Country X. Apple, Rogers, Google, Amazon, decides for their own technical reasons, to store your video in Country X. Your video becomes popular and Country X does some research and finds out that your content is stored in their country. Country X decides to legally prosecute you for breaking their laws. Obviously, this quickly becomes mired in jurisdictional squabbling, but this could still cause the content producer some serious legal problems. It’s not a secret that publicly criticizing the government or elected officials are in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, NK, is a crime.
Unironically, while writing this post and checking news sites, this article on Reuters about tightening the take-down time for “false” social media was published and is very close to what has just been described. The new rules will enshrine Vietnam’s position as one of the world’s most stringently controlled regimes for social media firms and will strengthen the ruling Communist Party’s hand as it cracks down on anti-state activity.
Provider uses your video in wildly popular advertising campaign but you receive no compensation. This is what User Generated Content is all about, from the perspective of the service provider. So you as a cottage industry movie maker or videographer shoots a video on your iPhone, which is automatically uploaded into the Apple cloud. Now Apple takes it and puts it into an international advertising campaign. You get to see your content used to promote Apple products, whether you like it or not, and with no compensation back you you. This has happened when Apple began promoting the high resolution video capture possible on the newer iPhones.