Comment by cge
13 hours ago
For some reason, despite these things being rather simple and concrete distinctions, all the reporting around the case keeps being confusing, vague, and contradictory. I had been rather convinced by the Ars Technica article [1] that Iron Mountain was just the data center operator and this was colocation of completely OSS-owned and managed equipment. Iron Mountain's statements there certainly seem to say that. There's the complexity here that, in general, Iron Mountain does apparently provide both data storage, and colocation.
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/pbs-s...
Part of the problem would be that we have "tech" journalists writing this who have never been on either side of the transaction directly as a colocation customer, or an ISP/datacenter/hosting company, and drafted/reviewed contracts for such services. Nor have they ever gone and like, personally laid hands on a 2U rackmount server in a cabinet in a colo.
I'm not sure that I could reasonably expect a "journalist" to have those qualifications, but they could at least attempt to interview a neutral third party in the colo industry who can explain the distinction.