It's slightly different, because as long as what goes through them is encrypted you don't really care about the pipes. Well, you should still care about the met

It's slightly different, because as long as what goes through them is encrypted you don't really care about the pipes. Well, you should still care about the metadata, but it's not exactly the same issue. With Cloud computing, operators frequently have access to all your data. Sometimes it is part of their business model to use it (e.g. gmail). As long as you are aware of that, no problem. They typically won't use your data for things more harmful than targeted advertising (although you should check that ToS do not give them ownership of your data...), except if you're, say, a paedophile, in which case they might tell authorities (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11012008/Paedophile-snared-as-Google-scans-Gmail-for-images-of-child-abuse.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11012008/Paedophi...). In other words, your data is typically well protected as long as the cloud provider and entities which could require access to its data (e.g. law enforcement agencies from its home country or the countries where its servers are) are not part of your threat model.