The clouds The social network may have gone too far

Trouble in the clouds The social network may have gone too far, however Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer already has a history of sticking it to Google in public statements, at one point saying that "no one uses" its Apps suite. What do you want to bet Ballmer will trash Google's new privacy policy the first time he's asked about it?

Last year's takedown of Sony's PlayStation Network highlights the danger. Holes in Amazon.com's Web Services platform were thought to be partially to blame, a scary proposition given the huge number of businesses that use the e-tailer for hosting support.

Making the call: buy We don't but know how all this plays out over the long term. Nevertheless integrated services are easy to imagine, and we already know from public statements that the Google+ social network is positioning to become a sort of communications flashpoint similar to what Microsoft has created with the People Hub embedded in Windows Phone. Privacy-policy changes are the first step to making this dream real, and I think that's worth enough to make an outperform CAPScall.