Ryan Gracey features in The Guardian commenting on Google Cloud outage

Ryan Gracey, partner and technology lawyer, has featured in The Guardian reacting to the Google Cloud outage, which caused widespread disruption and knocked key services offline for businesses including banks.

Cloud services were impacted and millions of customers were unable to access or send cash at banks as a result of the “power event”.

Ryan provided expert insight on the potential repercussions for businesses, and why it could lead to lost revenue and reputational damage.

At the time of the outage, he said:

“Many businesses will be discovering today that their cloud contracts protect the supplier far more than they protect the customer.

“When a provider goes down, the usual remedy is a modest credit against future fees. That is small consolation set against lost revenue, frustrated customers and damage to reputation.

“Liability for those wider losses is typically capped or excluded altogether. The real exposure sits in the gap between how heavily a business depends on its provider and how little its contract actually guarantees. For banks, the stakes are higher still. Regulators expect them to keep essential services running even when a key supplier fails.

“Outsourcing a service does not mean outsourcing responsibility for it. Boards should be asking, not just what their contracts promise, but whether the business could keep going if its provider went dark for a day.”

You can read more about the incident and Ryan’s comments on The Guardian website here.

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