Photo: leadfootGoogle shivered some timbers this week when it was revealed that the company is thinking about floating some of its data centers out to sea and anchoring its supercomputers on barges in international waters. The plan would reduce Google’s tax exposure and could drive down energy costs if the barges are able to capture wave power.
The news got us to thinking: Google expends a lot of effort protecting its users’ personal data from hackers and identity pirates; but wouldn’t a floating supercomputer with terabytes of valuable personal data be a rich target for honest-to-goodness high-seas pirates?
To find out, we asked our resident pirate expert, George Mason University economist Peter Leeson. His thoughts are below:
The situation with Google’s latest proposal is an interesting one: to avoid “political pirates” (a.k.a. the taxman), the company may risk making their data centers vulnerable to traditional sea pirates, who might very well sell stolen information to “intellectual property pirates.” It’s a veritable triangle of piracy involving a different kind of theft at each “corner.”
The danger of modern sea piracy is only significant in a handful of places, such as off the east coast of Africa and the Straits of Malacca, where it’s unlikely Google would float its data centers. Still, there remains some risk of sea scoundrels plundering the company’s precious booty no matter where it floats its data centers.
What’s interesting, then, is what Google’s proposal tells us about the kinds of pirates the company sees as posing the greatest threat to its profit. Apparently “political pirates” pose a greater threat to Google’s property than the seafaring kind do. If not, the company wouldn’t be willing to trade an increased chance of plunder by sea bandits for a reduced chance of plunder by government.
For more locations Google might not want to float its “computer navy,” check out the International Maritime Bureau’s live Piracy Attacks Map for 2008.
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1. It’s funny that leftists are avoiding the taxes.
2. When/If there is a problem, which country (let me guess …) will they ask to come save them?
Take a look at the cost of defending against the different kinds of pirates:
Defense against pirates of the seas: Simple, just surveil the area, and shoot anyone who comes close (obviously an oversimplication, but you get the point)
Defense against pirates of Government: Somewhat more difficult! Traditionally, it involves hiring heat-seeking lawyers and buying off contributing to a lot of political campaigns… all these are costly and risky.
I’d prefer the physical battle to the political one any day.
James
Googles has become a leading company in the computer world. For sure they have studied the opportunity costs of transporting their server to the sea. They must no the risk they will face, but they probably know that they are samller than those in land.
As for the pirates at sea I don’t think they will waste their time attacking a ship with a server, when they can be attacking ships with precious resources that sell at very high prices.
Google should do this if they know it will reduce its costs and increase its benefits. Stockholders sure will be happy!
How about just not RETAINING all of the possible information Google can gather on a person? Have it self-destruct (so to speak) after, say, 90 days.
Really, is there any value in remembering some polace I shopped three years ago? If I can’t remember, then I’m not going to hold it against Google for not remembering.
What I am most afraid of is ANYONE having that much personal information about people–pirates, corporations, or Google.
Not good. Not good.
I’m pretty sure the computers they use in their massive data centers are just cheap servers, which eliminates the potential for hardware looting.
Storing data on the ocean using wave energy is brilliant! No need to rent a building for space, no need for security, and no pollution. I just wonder how they would transmit the data back and forth, a very long cable or just wireless?
@#5 Boffo – there’s a market, but it’s small and connected enough worldwide that if more than a couple servers popped up unexpectedly, everyone would start asking where they came from. If the source isn’t known, most of the industry is very reluctant to buy.
How long before they just launch the servers into space? The chance of Space Pirates is even less than sea pirates.
As an aside, in addition to potentially generating electricity from waves, they can also reduce the electricity required to cool the data centers by piping the relatively cool seawater through a heat exchanger rather than using air conditioning. Keeping data centers cool is a huge chunk of the energy requirement.