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The idea is simple: to help Google reduce the amount of heat the company's server farms expel into the environment, moor them seven miles offshore and use sea water to help with the cooling process. This avoids the need to pump and pipe water long distances or use water that communities need for industry, farming and drinking. Security can be increased too - will we see a Google mini-navy one day, patrolling the waters around their servers?

One thing that immediately struck me on reading this - if the barges are moved later on to be more than twelve miles out, they will in most cases be in international waters*. What implications does that have for data security,legal compliance and countries requesting copies of data Google holds (e.g. emails or web search history) for court cases? Could Google refuse to provide the data because it is offshore and outside of national jurisdictions? Will courts have to serve notice against Google targetting infrastructure located on land in countries with laws "friendly" to their requests?

The blogsphere agrees - alongside the normal posts verging into "Big Brother" hysteria.

Reducing the amount of heat computers, and especially server farms, expel is important in the fight against global warning. The Times cite a report stating that it won't be long before computer emissions have the same carbon footprint as the aviation industry. There's another opporuntiy here for Google - use the server heat with turbines, solar panels on deck, sea power (as per the patent) and wind turbines to generate some, or all, of the power the servers need to begin with.

*NB: international waters and the legal treaties etc governing the seas are not as clear cut as many assume. See the Wikipedia link above.